


For Fear of Little Men

by dulceata2



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:16:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 49,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5320118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dulceata2/pseuds/dulceata2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something like a sequel and a side story to To the Waters and the Wild: </p><p>Her name had a destiny and there was no escaping it. Fate, that Bitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The mold on the castle walls made interesting shapes, if you squinted at them a bit. The odd statement crossed through her mind as she stared up at the imposing stone barriers that thrust themselves up against the sky. The grass against her back was still damp from the early morning's experience with pea soup, and she could feel one or two small pebbles making their place in history against the ridge bone of her back. She should move, twitch, at the very least hide, she thought. Especially because the red clad guards were approaching her. She really should, but it all seemed so pointless. After all she wasn't really there was she? A good question since her reality was somewhat transcendent. Put me here, place me there, oh look I'm in an alternate dimension and have managed to break one or another fourth wall. Sodding politics.

This was what you got when the fey decided they wanted to play with your sense of free will, independence, you know that rot that the Americans kept spouting off about.  
But this was the middle of the story, a wonderful place to start off at no matter what the nanny from the freaking Sound of Music – and yes she was culturally aware and actually knew what she was monologuing about – said. The middle let you skip all that extra stuff like where you were born and why the sequence of events was actually occurring. You know, plot devices and the like? But what the hey, I'm certainly not doing anything, it's not like I am just about to be clapped in irons and dragged to the feet of the reigning queen for an interesting round of multiple dimension questioning. Questions with answers that even I wouldn't have believed a few days ago. And hey, I've seen some pretty strange stuff, even for a London still enthralled with its punk alter-ego.

It all started when I drowned.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a lovely day atypical to London in the twenty first century. The skies were a murky grey and green that you couldn't tell if it was the Brythonic sea breeze being its normal angsty teen routine, or the pollution clogging up the atmosphere to the point that everyone just knew you were going to die on October twenty-fifth or November ninth, or various other dates without any logic whatsoever. Yeah "we all die alone" and all that lot. The double deckers were packed full of tourists in their shorts and shining white tennis shoes, clutching cameras and brochures and pretending to not be shivering their bums off instead of sensibly wrapping up in scarves and jackets like the natives. No, it would be a good idea to decide that one should brave the elements and be "British." I am so insulted at the thought. As if such uncivilized individuals could ever hope to approach the awesomeness of our nationality.

The scent of cigarettes and too much cologne hung over the street-side cafes where various students in stiffly starched uniforms clustered around the bar frantically grasping their coffee. Yes, coffee, that's what I said. None of this nonsense about tea and the like. Tea is all well and good in a fancy parlor with petit fours and skirts and bow ties, but when you're about to face the terror of an early morning french test followed by a calculus exam that is worth half of this semester's grade – and only half because the teacher is one of the good lots – you need the kind of caffeine fix that only a hot coffee can provide. Either that or a pint, but that provides a different kind of result, which you don't start wanting 'till the final week of exams. A line of grade schoolers trip across the crosswalk in bright red boots which seem to stand out against the dull grey skies, the grey streets and the monotonous grey buildings. Are you noticing a color scheme here? Anyways, this was right along the fence of Kensington Parks and at least there was some change here. Instead of grey there was now a kind of green coloring that was waterlogged by last night's showers and covered with the ashes from the nearby industry centers. But still. Nature.

In the middle of the park there was an adolescent girl. One of those types who you're not quite sure what her age, or even her gender was as she was thin without any evidence of a chest and clothed in a long draping dress whose whiteness didn't do anything for the paleness of her skin. Long blonde hair and no shoes. The kind of girl you think of as too wrapped up in dreams to actually deal with reality. Not that I could blame her, as reality kind of sucked. She was meandering around, not really looking where she was stepping with her head stuck in the book she was holding scant inches from her nose and raindrops in her hair. Her name was Charlotte, and she has absolutely nothing to do with this story. So it's really up in the air just why the author has included her at all.

No my story starts out on that same day but in hardly such a bucolic environment. Mine was the inner courtyard of the Tower of London. I know prophetic right, it was as if the world was out to get me in the whole tradition of "this boy will hang." except I'm not a boy, I wasn't born in an orphanage – as my mother has assured me with many startling and borderline traumatizing hours of proof – and my name is not Oliver – who was an idiot if there ever was one, Dickens be damned. No my name is Bridgit with all the connotations surrounding said name, as I learned much later. But today I was surrounded by the bliss of ignorance. Oh for my childhood innocence when all the world was beautiful and no one harmed.

"D'you got a light?" a neighbouring schoolmate asked of me, nudging my elbow sharply in an effort to be inconspicuous as the teacher at the front of the group droned on about Elizabeth and the princes in the tower as well as the various murders, hangings and suffocations. Ya de ya de ya, it's not like as British citizens we hadn't heard it all before. Seriously we practically drank it through our mother's milk, We skip-roped to it for crying out loud. "Divorced beheaded died" a suitably gruesome tale for young children I'm sure.  
"And then – drum roll please – she had her executed!" the teacher shouted excitedly.  
No really? And here I was expecting her to shower her in lilies of the valley.

"So yeah got one or not?" the boy next to me repeated gruffly.

"No" I answered shortly, glancing down at him. I was exceedingly tall for my age, as my aunts often pointed out in my hearing, going on to talk about the pros and cons to this factor in an increasingly competitive marriage market.

"And that hair." one of them, it was hard to tell them apart when they went on this kind of rampage. "It's just so – so..."

Orange, yes I have orange hair. Although really it's more like a brighter shade of auburn, and no I haven't dyed it. "Comes of the little people" my da used to say. That is when he could still say such things. He died, or rather disappeared three years ago and now it was just me and my mother living in lower london. The thing is, I don't believe that he left us on purpose. Oh I used to, don't get me wrong, but there were a couple things that made me question that firmly held belief. On the one hand, I saw things skittering around now and then. Small and indistinguishable most often but they weren't part of the limited wildlife of London. They would leave trails of glittering dust that only I could see, and they chittered like an even more annoying form of the squirrels that were taking over London. And those were only the minor ones. I would still see, out of the corner of my eyes mind you, odd additions like the tracing of wings on backs, and pointed ears. Then there were the horns, extra eyes and bleeding webbing and gills. But that was still not the most freakish thing. It was their eyes – because I could tell they were all of the same type, same otherness – their eyes were so completely inhuman. Not just their color and shape, which admittedly were weird, but their cold calculations and un-emotionality. It was the kind of thing I would expect machines to have, if machines had human shaped eyes you know, which was even more likely than the zombie apocalypse that everyone keeps yammering on about. Honestly, why worry about an approaching if questionable invasion if the bogeyman is already here?

I try to ignore them you know. It's not like they have ever made a point of interacting with me. If they want to get their claws sunk into other humans – and I mean this literally since I have seen claws that I expect only I can see, sunk halfway into a humans chest, that and the tentacles, so gross – why should I care. It's not like the human race hasn't done the exact same thing to each other, only more visibly. Capitalism and the like. Sure the bleeding Renaissance was good for us, it made us appreciate the value of money which we needed so badly. Note the sarcasm.

But I digress. The other main signifier that all was not as it seemed was something Da said to me before he "left" that I only remembered a year later.

"They're coming for me lassie. And what they want, they get. So there's no hope fight'n it. We shouldna have named you Bridgit. Throwing it in their face we were" his Irish brogue came back strong and sharp as if I was hearing it muttered into my hair once more.  
"Bridgit? Hey Bridgit! I glance up, oh the teacher has stopped and now the group is moving once more like a massive herd of sheep towards the doorway to the hill to the peasant execution. Sheep to the slaughter. I jerk my head sharply at the thought, I did not need that kind of imagery in my head. I was already crazy after all. Seeing things, hearing murderous whisper and the like. My bangs stuck to my forehead from the mists, hanging slightly in my eyes. Just long enough to be annoying but not enough to actually be able to clip up without having some malformed version of a mohawk via barrettes.

A high shrill laugh sounded from behind me, but when I turned to look there was no one there, only a lone raven standing on the parapets and glaring down at me with a gimlet eye.  
I know the whole urban mythology thing about the ravens guarding the walls of London – or was it the Tower – but those scavengers were a menace and the whole idea of not tossing grain at a wedding was bullshit. Those suckers needed to die. In case the people who promoted that kind of mythology had forgotten, it was that same breed of bird that had pecked out the eyes of the prisoners in the cages along the walls.

But I was walking moving making some sort of progress in my body's path towards the main group of students who were already moving away from me at what seemed like an increasing rate.


	3. Chapter 3

The wind whistled through the gaps in the gate, passing through the iron bars and ruffling my hair even further. There was something there, words, lyrics. A call.

Me being me I brushed it off as unimportant, and in the grand scheme of thing it sort of was. Even if I had understood what it meant what it warned against, I wouldn't have listened. Too wrapped up in the physical world of this reality and just how dreary my life was without any of that zest for life, what my mother calls my apathetic PMSing, to focus on the magic throughout the world.

Which was why, when my foot sank down into one of the, what appears to be shallow, puddles that littered the courtyard, it took me a moment to process what was really going on. I just kept trying to slog through and gradually sinking deeper, trying to gain proximity to the departing backs of my classmates. Who knew a trip to the tower could be so detrimental to my health? The momentary shock and the stillness caught up to me when I had sunk far enough that the waterline reached my hips. The world stilled. Leaves sank where they had blown about, the car horns in the distance dulled to a low thrum without any chance. Only the ripples moved. As I stared down they were hypnotizing, branching out in smooth circles around me that I thought there was even script written on the lines of the water. In and out I reached for them letting my fingers extend so that they just brushed the water. Then the voices reached my ear. Low and sickly sweet in musical tones that were haunting in a language I could not understand. They were chanting. Something. My name. And as I listened I slowly began to decipher small parts then sentences.

"Bridgit McFarland, last of many first of few. Come. Your name calls. Your destiny." It was triumphant and when I felt my fingers meet water, the voice soared. "I have found you" So totally here's Johnny, that it almost broke me out of whatever trance she – for it was a she – had put me in. But before I could retract my arm, a hand thrust up and grasped my forearm, pulling me down into the supposedly shallow puddle. Then my shoulders were under water and my head, I was breathing water for a second, and through the bubbles I saw a woman. She was beautiful in a kind of dark lady way. Her eyes were a deep green covered by dark hair and clothed in gossamer. Over her left eye were the silver tracings of a scar. An old wound that almost served to make her more delicate in contrast. She was pulling me towards her. Her lips a purplish blue against her pale cheeks but as I got closer I saw that she clutched a small knife in the hand that was not grasping me, and it was poised to strike. I had a small moment to fear for my life, as her eyes did not hold beneficial intent. Then. I drowned.

Drowning is painful, all that water rushing into your lungs, forcing the oxygen out and stopping your ability to breathe. Normally your brain cells would shut down from the loss of oxygen, but mine was not a normal "death" if you want to call it that. It was more the emotions of dying rather than physically experiencing it. Still painful thought. And none of that crap about a bright light and a saving grace. It just gets very dark, although perhaps that was just dependent on the place I ended up. No. Not hell, do you honestly think just because I was a tad bit pessimistic about the fate of the world I deserve eternal damnation? Don't answer that.

 

I ended up in a cavern, obviously underground, with the sound of water dripping. You know that feeling when you've been asleep so deeply that you wake up and gasp for breath, yeah that was me. I felt my face fo dampness, but I was completely dry except for the sweat soaking my hair. At first I could not see anything the light was so dim, which surprised me as I expected it to be pitch black, there must have been some light source. As my eyes adjusted I could tell that there was the dim outline of, well I hesitate to call him a man, moy like a man-shaped being seated besides me.

"That's right lassie no gratitude whatsoever. Kids these days, they expect the world to be laid out at there feet, no respect just assumption of service. It's not like I could have any business of my own is it. No no if I go to the trouble of dragging you out of her dark majesties web it couldn't be for any other reason than my duty."  
He grumbled on, not speaking directly to me just the general air, muttering to himself as he pushed his bulky form up to go putter over a small pot in the corner.  
I propped myself up on an elbow, hesitant to stand for I didn't know how low the ceiling was and I also wasn't sure if my head could take any sudden movement.

"That saving is relative, where the fuck am I and what am I doing with some pervy dude who watches me sleeping?" yeah that's me, I get all defensive and shit when I am scared.  
"Show some appreciation" he turned to face me. He was short and compact, his edges jagged rather than plump. His face was full of wrinkles mixed with scars and his clothes were in tatters. The only ornament was a worn bracelet, plastic, with the color completely faded out. He held himself hunched in and defensive, as if the world, whatever world this may be, had done him too many wrongs. But in the depths of his brown eyes there were still small glimmerings of what I found out later was hope. The side of his head was matted with dirt and blood and that side, the right, held fresh carvings. A sigil I would learn to recognize and hate with every fiber of my being.

"What's your name" I asked, still defensive but willing to figure out just what kind of situation I had gotten myself in, although really this time it wasn't my fault. I could hardly be blamed that rainwater was going wonky. That was outside of my repertoire for even me.  
He reared back as if I had done him some kind of mortal insult. Sharp anger and fear making his eyes bright in the dim lighting.

"You shan't have it" he growled "Haven't I already been bound enough? Twisted and knotted into her hair so that I can never be free? Never, no longer how much I betray and desire the light. Better punishment to continue living and serving, she always tells me. Mocking. Ohh" And he was off in another spiel. It seems like I had hit a nerve. What's in a name and all that?  
Yes I am an english/history major in case you couldn't tell, which is likely 'cause I don't look studious or academic in the least. I'm skinny and like to wear jeans and random band tee shirts with multiple ear piercings and a slightly disturbed expression on my face. That is when I'm not combining random pieces of costume into an outfit. I'm part of the historical theater company so I can get my hands on various paraphernalia. And secretly, I love dressing up. But none of that fairy tale crap, I always think that the supernatural must have their own perfectly unique problems to deal with so why should I wish to have theirs as well as mine. I can already see them in my reality. I had enough problems of my own. Why could I see them when no one else could? Was I hallucinating? What did they want with me? A better question.  
Meanwhile the strange figure had managed to pull himself together and was grumbling to himself once more. I wonder just what constituted as pulled together, since he was obviously holding a dialogue with himself.

"You don't ask for names" he informed me, "it's rude. Names are power so you're basically assuming that you would be able to bind the name to your will and - "

"Mines Bridgit" I interrupted him. I should have known. I'd read my fair share of folk lore when I had taken that totally useless class on gender and fairy tales. Just what I expected to be able to do with that I wasn't sure. But yeah a lot of the rural areas had told tales about not giving ones full name, you never know what it might be used for. Which I suppose was reasonable in a time without any social security number where identity could be used and discarded at will. But to have this odd troll-like creature spout off such ideas in an underground cave was somewhat disconcerting.

"I know" he was solemn of a sudden. "What else could have fallen through but a Bridgit. What else could she have trapped so easily?"


	4. Chapter 4

I got the sense that my name was no longer a name but a symbolic object, a what rather than a who.

"What do you mean?" I demanded "and you still haven't answered my question. Where the fuck are we?"

"Betwixt and between. You are on the borderlands between the light fey and the unseelie. She almost had you trapped fully when I caught you up with a little help" there he caressed the bracelet, lost in his own kinder memories.

 

Yes that was perfectly clear, I have no questions whatsoever as it was not in the least bit vague.

He continued to ignore me, shuffling over to a corner to prod at the cave wall.  
"Let's see" he muttered, his hands skimming over the stone. "Ah here we go, left one from the bottom with two up and" something clicked and a section of the cavern wall slid open to reveal a mirror.

A mirror? I ask you.

"Bridgit - " since when did we get so familiar? I still didn't know what to call him. " -you should end up back above ground in the human world. Don't go near water for a while. Her power is focused best there and she is a creature of habit." He acted as if the whole situation was so obvious. How was a mirror, an inanimate piece of reflective metal supposed to get me back up there? And still just where was I now?

"Well? What are you waiting for, the magic won't last forever without her noticing. I can play stupid but even if you're not blamed, the fate she has set out for you. Well it ain't pretty.

And just who was this she that he talked about with such fear and loathing. But before I could tie him down and interrogate him, because yes I was freaked out enough to do that, he was hustling me along towards the flat black pane as if expecting some odd portal to pop open due to my proximity.

I looked in the mirror. I didn't do this often because, hello, I had orange hair and I'm not sure what your standards of beauty consist of, but mine did not include such a bright color. Why couldn't I have been black haired or brown, hell I would even settle for blonde if it came for a choice between the two. Although the person scowling back at me didn't look like some kid with a bright color fetish had scribbled all over her head. I'm not saying she didn't resemble me at all, no one else had such a sad excuse for a t-shirt like mine, but she was framed by wisps of reddish gold and bathed in shadows it didn't look half so fluorescent. It was almost pretty, contrasting my shining green eyes nicely. But before I could, gods forefend, start preening, the small troll – still no idea who, much less what he was – shoved me from behind the knees – he was short after all – and I fell into the mirror which had suddenly become fluid.

And I came up sputtering into the bright lights of a medical flashlight being shined in my eyes. One of my better moments if I do say so myself.

"She's conscious" the paramedic said finally moving the light away and causing me to blink in the overcast skies that were now so much darker in comparison. I was having too many quick light changes today. And yes I was soaked my shirt sticking to my chest in an uncomfortable manner and my jeans itched. Uggh wet jeans. I sat up slowly as the medic, he was kind of cute, helped prop me up. Oh yay cute and blue eyed, and I must have been spewing rainwater up at him while knocked out. So not the best first impression.  
I looked up only to find myself surrounded by my classmates, all of whom were leaning down staring at me, as if they had no conception of personal space.

"What happened?" I asked still a little out of it. After all I'd just jumped dimensions, you can hardly blame me for feeling a little vertigo.  
My best friend and fellow social outcast, Jenna, brushed people aside as she pushed to the front of the crowd.

"You tripped in a rain puddle. It was kind of embarrassing" she reassured me. And this was who I called my best mate, the one who would stick up for me through thick and thin.

Jenna had decided she wanted to rebel. There was nothing wrong with her home life. She came from a good Christian family who spoiled her rotten and let her get away with anything. Which perfectly explains why she decided to dye her hair blue get a nose ring – which she actually wasn't allowed to wear on school property, thus her flaunting the loophole here on the school trip – and dress in leather and skin tight jeans, ears constantly covered by massive headphones. I told her she was some odd hybrid between goth emo and geek to which she replied with some seventies word that made no sense to me but which she insisted was "totally rad."

"Thanks Jen, that means the world coming from you" I snarked up at her. She huffed flipping her hair and making a point to have several blue locks fly into the face of the nearby blonde menace the world somehow thought would be sensible to call Chastity. The talk of the bleachers and the boys' bathroom stalls. I heard her number practically littered each and every urinal stall in the complex. And I should know, my other best mate was male and the biggest gossip queen. Dylan took being bi to the extreme, flipping between one stereotype to the next at will to the point that I demanded whether he thought being bisexual meant he had to be bipolar too. We were the misfit crew, respectable Londonians – and by that I meant our school's up and ups – didn't approve of us and thus decided to either ignore our existence or torment us eternally.

You know the stereotype of what a private college should be like, the goths the gays and the populars. Don't go outside of your circle don't try to change. A high laughter skittered over my ears. Not again. I had almost drowned and I still hadn't knocked my head on right. What the fuck was that? The squirrel that was not really a squirrel was racing up and down the parapets madly. The thing was instead of running along on four paws, he – well I assumed it was a he – was running on its hindquarters brandishing its tale at me in an overtly mocking manner. Yeah I'd lost it.

"Bridgit, hello?" Jenna was waving her hand in front of my face. Oh, I'd blanked out again.

"Maybe you should go home and rest, perhaps call your GP about balance issues..." the cute paramedic was looking at me askance. Great I'd managed to freak out someone who probably saw weirder things every day in his rounds. Score for Bridgit.

"That's probably a good idea love" oh goody Dylan was in his effusive stage and was hitting on my source of medical care. On the other hand, I wouldn't have to suffer through this -for a History slash English student – excruciatingly painful trip.

"I am feeling a bit nauseous" I answered using my best Doris Day pathetic voice complete with the requisite puppy dog eyes.

Which worked out in the end as I found myself with a doctor's note, an excuse from finishing the trip, despite the teacher leading the group's protests, and a smug Dylan who, being the only one of my limited circle of friends with a car, managed to pull escort duty. I found myself seated on the right – yes the right– in the front seat of a beat up BMW with the heater blasting and Bowie's I'm Afraid of Americans blaring through the speakers.

"Want Starbucks?" Dylan questioned from the side of his mouth.

"Please" wasn't the answer obvious? The one nice thing about living in tourist central was the Starbucks were never as crowded as the sidewalk cafes, and were thus actually less expensive. A good hiding hole for students who were in effect cutting school, no matter what kind of paperwork they had obtained.  
Dylan insisted that we finish our, in his words, "stainable liquid" before we got back in his precious, so we lounged around the sitting area for a good half and hour, beating the small crowd out by a scant few minutes. He was a pansy drinker, I always said. My cup was finished in five minutes. I drank it still steaming in big gulps, whip cream and all while he proceeded to blow on it until lukewarm and then took mincing little sips.


	5. Chapter 5

Dylan had just made a short break to go to the loo, no bladder control whatsoever, when my freaky vision thing pulled me for another loop. The barista had just finished his shift, and was pulling off his apron, when a small furry thing pushed out from under his waistband. It was a tail, no not the dirty kind, after all it was fluffy and coming out of his rear, I'm not sure how kinky that would be to you, but to me it screamed abnormal.

He shoved it back into his jeans, pretending as if he was just pulling his, admittedly baggy, jeans back up over his hips. He glance around conspicuously and when his eyes met mine they didn't stay their normal limp grey blue but flashed gold and stared at me hungrily. I was just about to pass it off, who am I kidding, deny it as just a shift of the light when he grinned at me, the corner of his lip lifting up to reveal perfectly sharp canines. It was none of that fake plasticky stuff you see around Halloween. This was bona fide fangs, complete with pieces of food stuck between the right incisor and its neighbour. Yeah you know what I said about fairy tales not being all that Disney made them out to be? This was the reality of the big bad wolf, and there were a lot more out there. I should know, I saw them much more often than I saw shiny little fairies with gossamer wings and flowers for dresses. I never saw those. I don't think they even exist. Faerie, or what I understood of Faerie from the above ground residents – admittedly limited but hey they had to come from somewhere – was much closer to reality in its day to day politicking, true a reality that existed in the medieval era plus magic, but they weren't the kind and generous divine beings that so much of popular culture made them out to be. Note the beast serving drinks.

I turned away for a second to look for Dylan, but when I turned back the teethy barista was gone, and there remained only a short balding man just on the wrong side of pudgy.  
"I'm done Bridge" Dylan popped up at my elbow and I almost gave him a shiner I was so tense. The strange beings had never approached me, never made a move against me, but I had not been having a good day so it was best not to take chances. Because of course my alertness would have been effective against them what with my obviously spot on aim against their fangs and what I assumed was weaponry. For there were more of them. I never knew Starbucks was so popular on both sides of the mythical.

"Geez Bridge, I buy you caffeine and this is how you thank me? Maybe you really should be at home resting, your senses are obviously leaving you." Dylan muttered at me, taking my arm and steering me away from the table that I had been gripping with white knuckles without realizing it.

I heard a snicker from over my shoulder. This one at least sounding a bit more human, despite holding the small lilt that I had come to recognize as the accent of the iron bound.  
Turning I was surprised to see someone so normal looking, despite the pointy ears and almond shaped eyes that were just a tad too bright for a human.  
He was dressed in ripped jeans with an emerald green muscle shirt and on his shoulders hung a leather jacket with small slits on the back for his wings to fit through. His hair was raven black and his bright eyes shone blue. His sharp teeth peeked over his lips in a wicked smile. Not the faintly disturbing sharp teeth of the wolf creature, the boy at least didn't have food stuck between his teeth. 

He gave a small little flutter of his fingers in a mocking wave as his eye caught mine and suddenly I felt strange, as if some kind of cloak had been draped over my shoulders. Shutting off the cold as well as the majority of the sounds of a bustling Starbucks. He pretended to tip his non- existent hat in my direction and then with a turn and a blink he was gone. I felt a weight in my pocket and, pulling it out discovered a tiny little rendition of an umbrella with a note wrapped around its centimeter long handle. "Keep dry fair lady. We cannot afford to have you caught."

Cute. Somewhat disturbing that he was able to sneak that into my jean pocket. But a nice little reminder to stay away from water. I wonder how the troll-thing, I decided Mr. T was a better pseudonym, had managed to get the word out. Or had he, was it all an elaborate trap to get me to trust some other fey sprite to my detriment?

I quickly shoved the miniature back into my pocket. The cape-like thing felt like a blessing at least. It kept the rain off and I got the feeling it would keep most anything off, which was reinstated when I caught a glimpse of the same brilliantly green eyes from my drowning glaring at me from one of the fountain ponds that we had to pass to get back to Dylan's car. She was clearer now that I wasn't having a near death - or was it actual death - experience. 

She was pale almost chalk like with, as I said, brilliant green eyes, and long dark hair with various odds and ends and strips of paper knotted in them. Not dread lock knots but more like intentional ones, and the words Mr. T had muttered came back to me. She knots names in her hair and binds you to her will for the rest of your sad existence. There were jewels surrounding her neck in a tight choker that, when she moved her neck revealed the scars from when they had dug into her skin. She mouthed something at me but before I could guess what they meant a coin was tossed into the fountain and the ripples destroyed the image.

Dylan tugged me towards the car and we took off, his second favourite Bowie song of teenage rebellion blaring. No one can blame you... Yeah that fit in with the whole problem of the reality we had to deal with.

Pulling up to my front stairway in the midst of urban London that pretended it was suburban domesticity despite being just off of Charing Cross station I saw that my mother had put out the laundry on the stairway again. Cause it wasn't like we didn't have a perfectly good drying machine. An effort to return to domestic simplicity, she always told me. Besides it covers the smell of the cigarettes you horrid teens insist on smoking scant feet away from the front porch. That's what air freshener was for mom, and if you weren't going to use it why did you spend such an exorbitant amount on the newest technology of the laundry institution, bragging rights?  
"Spring cleaning?" Dylan mocked. As if he hadn't seen my mother do it time in and time out. At least this time she hadn't put her bras on the line, she had some understanding of too much information at the very least.

I glared at Dylan, but before I could slam the car door behind me he grabbed my wrist as I got out. "Bridge, you okay?" this was why I put up with Dylan's craziness, he could be a real sweetheart when it counted, and he could tell when it counted.

"Yeah" I answered him seriously, forcing a small smile as I actually closed the door nicely, which I am sure he appreciated since the paint job on the car was already severely flaking. No need to jostle his precious any further.

When I unlocked the door with my key, because yes my mother did take simplicity that far and refused to implement a keycard despite the higher probability of theft with a key, the house was completely silent. Noticeably absent was the everyday sounds of food cooking or the tap tap of the keyboard when my mother was working on another story and was behind the date her publisher had demanded that she meet. Mom must be out, and the bright pink sticky note on the top of the fridge verified it. 

Sweetie, gone out to meet some friends for dinner, don't wait up. 

Excellent. Not that I don't love my mother, because I do, but she made it increasingly hard to get work done and relax. She was one of those people who fluttered around and needed constant attention, either talking or having you sit with her as she worked on whatever she was doing at the moment. Rarely did I have a moment alone without her claiming that I was being introvertive and shutting her out. It was like a bad relationship with a clingy girlfriend or boyfriend. Not sure which one of those is actually worse.

I threw my bookbag on my bed opened up Facebook for a quick scan, oh look it was the end of the world next Tuesday and a new boy band would be playing Wednesday – contradiction much? Then I decided screw the homework my day had been hectic enough already. Plugging my iPod into the speakers I shuffled into the bathroom to brush my teeth per my usual schedule of teeth, music, and bubble bath with a good, fun, book. My usual routine was mandatory, especially having my hair meet the cigarette butt and pigeon crap covered ground of the Tower greens, not to mention whatever was on the bottom of the shoes of the various visitors. Surely she couldn’t get to me in my own home. Wasn’t there something about needing to be invited in? I’d never seen any of the other strange beings in here, after all.

Uggh it didn't even bear mentioning I was washing my hair. My jacket went the way of my pack, tossed haphazardly onto my bed. I shivered once I'd stripped down to my skin, the heater must be broken again and considering we were kind of subsisting on my mother's capability to push out novels, we were dirt poor and the answer to a broken heater was another sweater or to burrow under multiple duvets and throw blankets.

I let the bath fill with the steaming water, pouring a cup of lavender scented bubble bath in with it. Yes I splurged my paycheck on soap, so sue me.

I pulled one of my old beat up novels off the shelf, looking forward to a long soak with Dickens, none of that new age sappy romance crap for me thank you.  
Setting myself into the water, I let my body take a moment to become acclimated to the extreme heat change. From goosebumps to bliss. I could feel the knots in my muscles that had been accrued from the day's events relax and smooth out in an almost orgasmic release.

Laying back I let the longer tendrils of my hair touch the surface of the water and grabbed my text.


	6. Chapter 6

I was just about to read the first sentence of Copperfield, always an important moment in one's life that one should experience as many times as possible, when I felt something odd. The water was tightening around my ankle. I looked down and seriously the water was twining around my foot and looked to be coiling into a rope. I had a single second to think a word, fuck, when I was pulled in the general direction of down. Not down as in I was going to hit the bottom of the tub, but more downwards as in I was going through the tub's bottom and back into the dark.

Then I hit ground with a crunch and a little bit of a squelch.  
Then there was an odd thing staring into my face. Large bulbous eyes that were a very mud like brown and an extremely large nose that made me think of those old Japanese texts that I'd skimmed through on a whim, and they talked about small mountain creatures that resembled both old men and crows. And their skin was red too. But the thing was poking me and not in a very gentle manner.

"What?" I snapped at him. Yep, being kidnapped from my own bathtub didn't phase me at all, though the fact that I wasn't wearing anything was a bit disconcerting.

"Hmph" he snorted and pulled a rope around my hands. He was surprisingly strong despite his small stature, and managed to hold my wrists still with his single left arm. That's when I noticed he only had a stump for his right. Dude could seriously balance.  
"Come along human" he barked at me sharply, giving a tug to the rope.  
I let him lead me where he willed, I certainly wasn't going anywhere, as I looked further around I found that I was not in the blank cavern that Mr. T had woken me in but instead was inside a lavish room, draped in furs and dark silver engravings. The furniture was all a dark wood, but I could not tell if this was meant to be a bedroom a living room or perhaps a strange version of a water closet. But the main attraction was some kind of altar in the center of the room, it wasn't your everyday pedestal that you see in those horror flicks surrounded by prepubescent boys drooling over an unconscious girl, it was - dare I say - classy.

Or at the very least it didn't look like some kind of hollywood mistake. She was standing in the center, yes the mysterious she who I was finally going to actually physically meet. This was actually less and less interesting than I thought. Sure it was kind of annoying to have her staring out at me from bodies of water like some kind of supernatural peeping tom, but the reality of her? Yeah this might not turn out well for me, especially since she was making caressing motions along the blade of a long, sinister looking knife. I don't like sharp pointy objects on principle. Even measly little flu shots freak me out.  
She smiled at me and it was the scariest thing I had ever seen. It was sweet and innocent, but you could tell it held a level of evil intent that was not going to be good for your health.

"The Bridgit mistress" my jailer spoke in an obsequious tone while scraping a bow and shivering or should I say trembling.

"Perfect" she answered, teeth glimmering against her dark red lips.

No not really, not perfect at all. I was kidnapped from a freaking bath only to stand naked next to a short man and a schizo woman holding a knife that she looked well versed in using, at least beyond the idea that the pointy side goes away from you, which is all one really needed to know anyways.

"So my dear" she was addressing me now, coming closer with a kind of gliding step that made her skirts flair around her smoothly. "You most likely are curious of what your purpose here is."  
"Not all together, I don't need to know the meaning of life or my existence, perfectly happy in my ignorance."

The dwarf- man jerked the rope sharply so I had to stumble not to fall flat on my face.  
"Such an impertinent mortal. It is - " she paused slightly as if searching for just the right term "-amusing." Very anti-Victoria.  
"No my dear" - I wasn't her dear anything - " You are here in my chambers for a grand purpose" - I was sensing cult fanatic here - "the purpose to which all my hopes and ambitions have laid upon and which you have the honor of fulfilling" - was I suppose to cheer?

"The throne of the seelie will fall at my feet. They destroyed my life so I shall I destroy everything they cherish. Everything they look to for protection." Oh typical villain monologue.

"And you " she was back to focusing on me, but now she was stroking my cheek with one finger, as if I was some prized possession who was going to be the means to her ends. Not a good position.

"You're going to be the sacrifice who makes it happen. Ruben" she barked out sharply at the dwarf -man, "prepare her." That's when I started struggling in earnest, don't know what took me so long to start panicking, a kind of lethargy that hung on my limbs. Too little too late though as Ruben easily bound me to the pedestal and then placed some kind of charm on me so that I could not move. It was easy for me to believe that this kind of supernatural world existed. I'd been living with the sight of it for three years, it was only the first couple times that I tried to utilize my powers of denial. Lately though I'd just been trying to ignore their existence. Very ostrich like and, as expected, it didn't work very well.

When I was completely immobile the only thing I could move was my frantic eyes. That and I could kind of twitch my ears. Helpful, no?

 

"Hold still now" the lady murmured in what was supposed to be a comforting manner. Umm no? I would so be out of there if I could have actually moved.

But just as she was bending over and the knife was getting closer to my skin, 'cause yes she was prolonging the moment, savouring the fear in my eyes I expect. 

Then of course, the chamber doors burst open ostentatiously. Oh didn't I mention? There were a pair of heavy wooden doors at the opposite end of the room that had all kinds of green interwoven into its carving. Pretty, and excellent for slamming open dramatically.


	7. Chapter 7

"Gwendolyn" a deep voice boomed out commandingly.

"My king." and boy did she sound unhappy about it. I noticed the knife had somehow managed to disappear to be replaced by a lady's pretty little penknife, far less dark looking, but still, pointy.

"A new pet Gwen? You must be getting soft." he hmmed for a moment, considering. "I'm afraid I'll have to take it off your hands though, my lady wife protests against mortal pets and what my lady dislikes -" he didn't have to finish. Obviously I was going to be a handed around like a meat sack on butcher day. But he seemed to be on my side. The tone he used, while carefully noncommittal also held a hard edge that basically said do what I say or you won't like the consequences, with faint hints of I'm pissed at you so you're going to feel pain regardless. But not in the threatening way Gwendolyn had used her vocal tones, more, I hesitate to say grandfatherly 'cause this guy still looked like he was in his late twenties with a wild shock of blonde hair and mismatched eyes. His high cheekbones and pointy ears, however, made sure that he could not be identified as a young human male. That and his sense of fashion. He actually had one that didn't revolve around too baggy or profane. His were more on the “so tight I'm going to show off whatever I've got whether you want to see it or not.”

I could feel the hand Gwendolyn was holding me with tighten in anger, and when she spoke her teeth were gritted.

"But of course. This mortal was merely meant as a surprise for Lady Sarah. I was only making her... better with a few... decorations."

"I am sure you were" the man replied back, baring his teeth back at her. "Unfortunately good Robin caught sight of her earlier and decided to track her down in order to bring a playfellow to the queen. So inopportune of a surprise." Now he was obviously mocking Gwendolyn. He snapped his fingers and the boy from the coffee shop, no not the one with a tail, the pretty one, popped out from behind him.

 

"Robin will take care of you for a while" he spoke to me now, instead of totally ignoring my existence as if I was some kind of furniture piece. Perhaps a chair?

Robin came forward and draped some kind of actual cloak over me. I flashed back to a small miniature umbrella and the feeling of protective cloth against the rain. Oh, said umbrella was in the pocket of the cloak that was probably still dumped on my bedroom floor. Damn.

He smirked down at me as if he could hear my thoughts.

"Thou is ever contrary wise and never would listen." Did I know this guy? He acted like we had spent eons together or something. Was I suffering from memory loss, or was he bull shitting me?

He pulled me up and offered his arm as if he was a gentleman. I say as if because he was staring down at my cleavage which was left open by the way I grasped the cloak he had draped over at me. And he knew I knew that he knew I knew he was looking. Basically he didn't care that I could tell he was something of a, to use Scarlett's term, a cad.

I could feel Gwendolyn's eyes staring into the back of my head as we walked out, and I swear I heard her whisper "I'll get you back, never doubt it" but that would be silly because if I could hear her then surely the males could hear her too, and she couldn't be that stupid, could she?

As soon as the chamber doors were shut behind me, the blonde man quickly pulled me towards him and got right in my face. Dude give a girl without any clothes a little space.

"What did she want with you mortal?" he demanded, still in a whisper so that his voice didn't carry, but it was still sharp.

"Hello it's lovely to meet you too, whoever the fuck you are, my name is Bridgit and I was trying to take a bleeding bath when this bat shit crazy lady drags me down and threatens to sacrifice me."

"For what? you insolent child."

"For poops and giggles old man, what do you bloody think?"

"Oh I like her" the boy, Robin spoke up from behind blondie.

“ Charmed, I’m sure" the blonde man looked stressed as he ran his hand through his blonde locks, leaving them, if possible, even more disrupted than before.

"Well love, you've really gotten yourself into quite a situation. I am high king Jareth. I rule over both seelie and unseelie, and Sarah is my lady consort. The hag you saw back there is my brother's half sister twice removed - or something like - and she has equal aspirations to the throne. Just why she wants the bloody thing is beyond me. Now I need to know what she was planning to do with you so that I can prevent the chaos her plots always cause."

"And you couldn't wait until I have clothes on, since her plot obviously is no longer going through without me in her control." I wasn't going to take this kind of manhandling, high king or no.  
"Majesty" Robin interrupted our starting, or should I say glaring, contest.

"What is it Puck?" Jareth snapped at his lackey. Ah now I could place him, Robin Goodfellow also known as Puck, supposed servant to Oberon, so what was he doing with this bloke? Do I smell the foul stench of a Benedict Arnold?

"Well, majesty" he grinned unrepentantly, "hadn't we better take this kind of discussion off questionable territory?" Jareth looked up sharply and I, looking around at the same time, was able to see the outline of one of the walls shimmering and pulsing. It seems Gwendolyn wasn't quite finished with the discussion.

"Hurry" Jareth commanded grasping one of my hands tightly as he made a strange symbol with his other hand and chanted a single word that I didn't understand.

What was with the grabbing? I understood I had little of, what the English students back in London would call agency, but seriously? I wasn't some inanimate object to be lugged around, although considering the circumstances it wasn't like I was going to argue.

The previous setting blinked out and without any in between space like you would normally expect we popped back into existence somewhere else. Of course this somewhere else turned out to be a bedchamber that was drastically different form Gwendolyn's.

For one thing it wasn't covered in shadows, for another it was so green. Not the white which would have been too blatant a statement of difference. Oh sure there were contrasting shades of cream, but the major color scheme here was green. The bed had a cascade of different shades, and was blatantly rumpled. Well someone had a good night. Did this guy have confidence issues? Because I really didn't need to know this much information about him.

And there was light, streams of it coming through the window. It wasn't a human sun, but the upper regions of Faerie, as I came to understand later, had their own shifts of day and night that could be pattern but could also be due to the whim of the monarch.

There was a lady there too. She was different. True she was beautiful, even I with my jaundiced view of beauty could see that. But she wasn't a faerie, her beauty was not that of high cheek bones and delicate limbs and especially not of pointed ears. She did not hold the otherworldly looks of Jareth, hers was a very human beauty. Long brown hair and eyes very similar to mine in color. She was wearing a plain dress of grey, obviously her working clothes as it didn't look ornate enough to be a public outfit.

"Sarah" Jareth breathed from beside me. He said her name with such love, happiness and a hint of possessiveness that made the lady's lips twitch upwards at one corner.

"I still have yet to fully train you into knocking. Don't I Jareth?" she had a New York accent which was startling after hearing the normal tones of my obviously British companions.


	8. Chapter 8

Jareth dropped all pretenses of authority and swept the lady Sarah around amidst Robin, Puck's wild laughter. They made an interesting pair, his light to her darker hair. It didn't make her look all the worse for his fey beauty, only emphasized hers.

"Jareth" she laughed, "What did you do this time?" Yes these rulers didn't stand on ceremony.

He whispered something in her ear and she glanced over at me, her eyes slowly losing the laughter's sparkle.

"And you couldn't have gotten her clothes first?" she demanded of both Jareth and Puck. Oh I liked this lady, she knew what really mattered to a girl and could keep her men in line.  
"Go on get out you two imbeciles" she shooed them towards the door briskly, "we'll just be a few minutes." Jareth left with an amused quirk to his lips and Puck played the fool once more, dancing out backwards and blowing me a kiss.

"I go I go, look how I go?" I ignored him, pointedly turning my attention to the approaching lady.

"What are you called?" she asked carefully as she led me back towards a large closet hidden in the far corner of the room. Oh yeah, names and binding. I debated making up some fake name. Sally perhaps, but too many people already knew who I was.

"Bridgit" I answered equally cautious.

"Ahh" she mused softly, “that helps explain some things.” As she spoke she knelt down and pulled out a drawer, grabbing a pair of denim. Which was surprising as I was dreading some gossamer finery or god's forbid, a dress. I don't do dresses, I don't like them and they really don't like me. I can't remember how many times when I was young and without a means of escaping that my mother forced me into some lacy horror to go to an event. I would inevitably end up ripping or staining it or, if I couldn't manage that, hiking it up to play football with the boys. Good times.

She smiled at my expression. "I'm not sure if I have any band shirts with me" she said, "but I do have this." She pulled out a button up from the rack she had been rifling through and held it out. It was surprisingly cool. Not the starched wonders of Ann Taylor, but a pretty cream with a brown vest attached. This I could do.

She motioned me towards a side water closet and I quickly slipped the shirt over my head I gloried in the silky feel. I was very touch sensitive so anything I wore had to be a very specific material or feel. It drove my mother crazy and she refused to go shopping with me anymore. Not that I was devastated or anything.

 

When I came out, Sarah, such a strange way to talk about a reigning queen, so much the informality, gave me a once over and then a nod of approval.

"Now. We can talk" Oh glory just because I was clothed meant the full inquisition, and I couldn't pull the snotty adolescent with her like I could with her male other.  
"Do you know why you are here?" this wasn't what I expected, I kind of thought I would be getting the fourth degree again about what woman with a bad hair job, also know as Gwendolyn, was planning to do with me.

"Ummm, no?" I asked her 'cause really she seemed to already know the answer to her question. Which normally would bug the fuck out of me, but since this wasn't secondary school and my grade didn't count on my subservient answer, I guess it was alright.

"Haven't you heard the stories about the girl Bridgit who was stolen away by the fairies for seventy long years?" she asked again carefully.

"Oh sure, and when she came home again her friends were all dead. But what does that have to do with me beyond my mother having a dark sense of humor?"

She laughed, "oh everything and nothing. It's not just what you're called it's a tradition. Bridgits throughout the history have held power here in Faerie. Power because they hold a strong place in stories, not because the original Bridgit was anything much." 

So I was a symbol. Great.

She became serious, her green eyes shining sharper as they looked at me. "All stories are partly true after all."

And wasn't that just a tad bit unnerving.

"So I'm trapped here for seven score years fair lady?" I mocked.

She took it the wrong way. "Not yet. But your presence complicates things greatly. You are a signifier and your use whether for good or ill, would add energy to whatever move is made." 

Yeah creepy cause I was totally getting what Gwendolyn was getting at now. I wasn't just some random girl who happened to be in the right place at the right time, or was it the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I knew she would not just stop looking for me I was an important step in her plan. Irreplaceable. Crap. Oh sure being special is all well and good when it's in a good context, say a romantic relationship, far too often though it turned out to be the opposite.

"Why did she want you Bridgit?" it was a gentle question, framed in the tones of a friend, and we were friends, despite having just met her, I already liked her. I knew barely anything about her besides a name and her position as high queen, but she gave me jeans and laughed at my humor. I know I know, hardly good requirements for having someone as a friend, but I should tell you how I met Jenna and then you'd know that these were far better than anything I had come up with previously.

I slumped, my tense posture slouching over, I hadn't even realized I had kept myself on the defensive until I relaxed.  
"She said something about sacrificing me in order to reach her dreams. Something about making them pay" I admitted, head hanging as if it was some fault of mine. Which it wasn't, I had no business here whatsoever and really I was beginning to appreciate just how wonderful normality, or at least my level of normal, which is relative, was up above in London, listening to some idiot drone on about beheadings and smotherings. Yep, normal.

"Ah shit" she cursed. I looked over at her in amusement, she had slumped down on the wall besides me and was continuing to curse without making any sound her fingers clenched in anger. "She's doing it again" she muttered "trying to take the throne by using dark forces."

"Well yeah didn't the way she looked kind of imply that she wasn't one for rainbows and puppies?" I asked confused.

"Not just dark" she explained, "she's trying to use blood sacrifice in order to gain divine interference. And not the good kind of divine. The pre-civilization war gods who feast on terror and pain and are always hunting and torturing. They're not war gods exactly, those are more interested in honor and glory, they're more like scavengers I suppose" she mused.

Great, lady with a death complex. "But I should be safe here right?" I asked.

"You would be, but you cannot stay too long. You cannot eat here without damning yourself to stay for even more than seventy years. And I cannot charm something for you because the magic signal would be traceable, and we cannot let Gwendolyn know that you are here if you stay. She has many spies, those lost in their own minds or too willing to serve the dark for the immediate wealth, rather than wait for it to come through their own efforts."

"So what am I supposed to do?" I was angry now, it seemed as if she was saying there was no other choice but to give me up as a lost cause, and hope for the best. "Am I suppose to just sit and twiddle my thumbs back above while I wait for some puddle to drown me in again?"

She looked at me calculating. "You are taking this surprisingly well. It almost sounds as if you have experienced this kind of magic before." She was back on the defensive, pulling herself in and away from the camaraderie we had shared before.

"I've been seeing things for the past three years" I admitted, "right after I turned seventeen the world started getting wonky, the Tunnels higher and the statues more lifelike, not to mention all the weird people who started popping up."

"But have you actually experienced the Faerie magic" she asked tightly, more defensive than ever.

It was a particularly pointed question as if she expected a certain answer from me although what that was I wasn't sure.

"She caught me once before" I stated darkly, shivering slightly.

"How did you get back above?" she demanded. No ‘what happened?’ or ‘are you all right?’. Nothing. Just a how did you escape, as if that was all that mattered, which truly it was but I expected a little more human dithering or beating around the bush, you know the usual socially acceptable attitude towards an uncomfortable situation.

"I don't know. Mr. T -"

"Who?'

" A short grumpy troll like thing with lots of wrinkles."

"What was on his wrist?"

"What?"

"His wrist. Was he wearing some kind of accessory?" her question was almost frantic and I could tell my answer was incredibly important to her.

"He had a red plastic bracelet that he kept twisting. It was really worn" I answered her.

She gave a soft sigh setting back slowly as if thinking. Jareth opened the door cautiously at that moment, carefully looking around the frame as if expecting an attack.

"Are you ladies done?" he demanded on seeing that the coast was clear.

Sarah flew into his chest, almost knocking him over but he was stronger than his frail body looked. Awkward moment. I was stuck in a bloody closet while the royalty of Faerie got all touchy feely. Not sexual but more wrapped up in their own emotions.

"Jareth" I heard her half sob, "it's Hoggle. He's still alive." His face went white then blank, only his eyes showing how incredibly pissed off and yet sad he was.

"Where" he asked me.

"He was underground somewhere, I don't know exactly. Near a water source or something.   
“He implied he was bound up in Her hair" I was babbling but seriously, angry Jareth scared me. Made me want to tell him everything I knew and it wasn't the scary of when I'd first met him. Now it was the scary ‘defensive my lady love is sad and you're somehow involved’ kind of scary.  
"How did he get you away?" Sarah peeped out from Jareth's chest. Sniffling a little. God they must have a lot of overly expensive shirts if she was fine with ruining Jareth's.

"There was some kind of mirror" I started only to be interrupted by Sarah's gasp, "he found it" she murmured surprised.

" But at such a cost." Jareth answered tiredly. "She cannot have known of this else she would never have let him near it." he continued murmuring to himself. I wasn't there anymore to him.  
"It?" Well I certainly wasn't about to let him forget me, I was here and I needed to be elsewhere, preferably at home in my bed with only faint memories of such a horrible nightmare. Maybe it would be due to a slice of pizza too many or milk that had sat out too long. Maybe I was hallucinating due to a stomach infection. All preferable to actually standing in front of the royalty of Faerie, no matter how much I liked, or in Jareth's case tolerated, them personally.

"The mirror is an old relic of the royal family. It was said to be able to provide transport between the two realms, Faerie and mortal, without expending power. It was supposedly created by one of the old gods so that he could visit his human lover without stealing the power of the earth that the precarious nature of the old power was based upon." She intertwined her fingers with Jareth at the moment.

"Either that or so that he could sneak above ground without the harridans of his family knowing" Jareth snarked, smiling mockingly.

"What is it doing in a cave?" I was confused. It seemed like something that would be holed up in some kind of royal treasury gathering dust. Or maybe not considering the human nature of the queen, although not mortal she had to have, or had, friends and family up above. She didn't seem the type to just ditch everything and everyone for a man.

"It was lost, it proved too tempting and the elders hid it away only to have it stolen." Sarah answered softly.

"Well isn't Hoggle the lucky one to have found it" Jareth didn't look altogether pleased. Am I sensing jealousy here or is it just my odd senses, although I wonder what he had to be jealous about, certainly not Mr. T’s -excuse me Hoggle's – although I think my name was better – looks.

"But enough of this" Jareth decided to flip the mood of the scene back to less sad but more serious matters, or maybe he just wanted to flip his personality. Still up in the air about that actually.


	9. Chapter 9

"This girl- "

"Bridgit" Sarah interrupted him pointedly.

"As I was saying. This Bridgit -"

"Hmm better" Sarah muttered.

"Are you going to let me finish my sentence dear heart or not?" Jareth asked, sounding a bit harried but also amused.

 

"Well do go on."

"She shall have Puck as guardian for a sennight until the diplomatic problem is taken care of."

"What?" two voices echoed.

Puck popped up from behind the shoe rack where he had been crouched listening. I wonder just how long he had been listening to our conversation, which I could tell he wasn't supposed to have been from the furrow on Jareth's brow and the miniscule twitching of his fingers. Puck noticed it too as he weaved around to stand behind Sarah. Line of fire and all that.

The second what came from the mouth of Sarah. She was glaring at Jareth half disbelievingly and half accusingly, it was actually rather amusing the way he flinched at her look.

"Jareth" it was more of a growl than a name – not animalistic more the tone. I'd heard more than enough human animals actually growl at me to be able to tell the difference.  
"Diplomatic incident? That bitch is fucking trying to kill you" Sarah could be scary when she went all mother bear on you and her language dropped to that of a sewer rat or an American teen, I wasn't sure which since they're really similar at heart.

Puck was backing away from Sarah and heading towards me. What! Now that Sarah had started looking threatening I was the next best bet? Like that whole if a tiger is chasing you, you only had to be faster than the guy next to you kind of thing or did I actually look like I could do something about it? I folded my arms and glared at him, but he only smiled cheekily at me. The gall.

Jareth's eyes flashed gold for a second ad he grabbed Sarah's shoulders. "My life is worth so little without you so this minor diplomatic incident" he stressed the last two words pointedly, "will be taken care of as quickly as possible."

He glanced over at Puck and me. "Now. Go." and with an arbitrary wave of his hand the scene before me disappeared and I suddenly found myself in my bathroom once more, except I was dumped unceremoniously in the tub that was by now full of frigid water and oh yes, I was still clothed.

"Bloody fairies" I cursed. He had the funniest sense of humor didn't he. Note the sarcasm there.

"You called?" Puck was poised on the top of the sink. Of course he had managed to land perfectly on his feet

"How am I going to explain you to my mother?" I groaned.

"That's what you're worried about?" he demanded as he handed me a towel. He sounded somewhat put out. As if he wanted me to helpless with fright or something. Oh right his character was from the late sixteenth century when most women were wimps.

"You would be freaked out too if you knew my mother like I did."

"Truth" he muttered. "Never fear, if I will't she cannot see me. Or we could pretend I was your lover who you had hidden away in your room?" he waggled his eyebrows at me.

The thing is, if I had my choice, he's exactly what any man of mine would look like and his attitude was startlingly similar. Funny how fate likes to mess with us as I really didn't like, or was perpetually annoyed, by the reality of him.

"Don't even joke about it" I warned.

It was hard being or at least acting normal with a boy in the room. True only I could see him and he wasn't really a boy more like a spirit of mischief – which actually didn't make it better – but still talk about uncomfortable.

We finally managed, or I should say I finally managed to get some sleep – oh goody our identities are already starting to overlap, this was going to be a long sennight – with the compromise that I got the bed he got the floor. Well it wasn't really a compromise, more like me kicking him off the bed every time he tried to crawl onto the bed. Pavlov truly does work, it only took about ten times for him to get the picture, although I'm sure he sulked and plotted his revenge all throughout the night.


	10. Chapter 10

I woke up after a surprisingly restful night's sleep to the blaring of my alarm clock and then a sickening crunch and a freaked out fairy climbing onto my face and clinging. Puck was obviously not a morning person. Although I do have my alarm go off extremely loud because otherwise I would just ignore it as background noise and go back to sleep. I'd finally figured this tactic out after a month of semi heart attacks and frenetic slash desperate dashing around the house so I could speed off to my first class. It was a bleeding miracle I didn't A get pulled over more and B didn't end up dead from a horrible crash. It was either a miracle or some dark plot of the devil because he had worse things in store for me, such as grad school or a desk job earning government cheese. But Puck was so over reacting and his clinginess was making me wonder just how this guy was suppose to be my bodyguard if a frigging alarm clock had him running and hiding.

"Mortals are so strange" he stated calmly brushing his clothes off as he untangled himself from me after waiting a few minutes to see if the utterly destroyed alarm clock – thank God that hadn't been the expensive one I used some days – didn't make any moves.

Wait what? His panic mode certainly wasn't my fault. But he was already picking through my closet considering and discarding. Finally "here" he said thrusting one of the long skirts I had in the furthest corner of the closet at me. 

"You're wearing this and " he pulled a, fortunate for his health as I was about to burst a blood vessel, band tshirt from my dresser "and this, with this belt" I was such a pushover as I took the outfit, it was actually pretty stylish while still being what I would call cool. Oh yeah, if Dylan could actually see him they would get along so well. It was either that or Puck was way too similar to my mother.  
The bus ride to school was a pain. Puck insisted on stopping to stare at everything and I couldn't tell him off because I would look like I was shouting to myself and I had way too many marks against my sanity already to escape a trip to the special hospital. By the end of the trip when we were still about half a block away from the campus I could tell he'd started doing it on purpose, especially since many of the things he stopped for now were things he had seen a couple minutes ago or things that frankly weren't that amazing. Or at least not to me but he didn't have that awe struck childlike look that he had when he was staring at the busy traffic around Trafalgar Square. And he was completely enamoured by the pigeons of all things.

My first class was interesting as I had a running commentary going regarding the truth of whatever my history professor was saying from the perspective by one who had, in a way survived the events being lectured on.

It wasn't until the class that was a normal literature class on journalism in San Francisco, although he did have a lot of pointed remarks to make regarding my writing style and syntax, that Puck went wild. Jenna was in that class with me as well as Chastity. Lord only knows as she was one of the enemy Economic Focuses. We are, Jenna, Dylan and I completely stumped on how such a stereotypical blonde is managing that. Puck went absolutely ga ga over Jenna in a way, staring at her and poking at me and pointing like a small child with a new obsession. But with Chastity he literally hissed eyes going slant wise and baring his sharp teeth in a manner that made them resemble a dog’s fangs. Whether or not he was using a glamour for theatrical effect or if this was how they normally looked, well I didn't want to know actually.

When she blew past me with her typical strut she stopped in front of me and I could tell she was just about to open her mouth with some scathingly humiliating remark – because yes just because we were older and supposedly mature it didn't mean anything had changed from high school, only now it was considered a justifiable means of communication between business rivals – but her eyes skittered over mine to glance at Puck and then quickly back at mine as if to pretend that she hadn't just glanced at someone or something that it wasn't possible she could see.

Then something shifted like a veil dropping or the fog lifting – to put it in purely literary terms – to my eyes Chastity lost her blonde cheerleader-like perfection. Her eyes seriously glowed a sickly yellow green and were slitted like a snake. Her hair started moving. Puck gave me a quick jerk towards him and he hissed in my ear. "Don't look in her eyes idiot. It's a bleeding Medusa."

I thought there was only one Medusa and she was limited by being headless, was my only thought at the moment.

I kept my eyes on Puck until I felt the Chastity slash Medusa move away. Can't go all snake lady in the public can you.

"What is she doing here?" I whispered furiously, bending over and pretending to have a minor muse attack that translated as me muttering while I wrote – cause all authors talk to themselves didn't you know – so that it wouldn't look too much like I was talking to thin air, only in the level of socially accepted rather than oh my god she's bat shit crazy kind.

"Isn't it obvious love?" Puck leant back relaxed, or at least pretending to be relaxed, now that the immediate threat was gone and speaking in a normal volume. Perks of noone being able to see or hear him I guess.

"She's one of Gwendolyn's lackeys. Lovely girl, no?"

Class continued per usual, but as the professor dismissed us I was quickly yanked out of the lecture hall, barely having time to grab my notes and hoping no one noticed that I was being dragged along by thin air. This whole situation was doing a number on my reputation as sane. Not that I had much of one but what little I had I wanted to keep relatively safe. So much for that.

We moved quickly weaving and dodging in and out of the merging crowds of students who soon became the crowds of urban pedestrians as we hit the city proper. So he'd memorized my schedule somehow otherwise how else would he know that I didn't have any more classes for today. Had he been digging through my pack as I slept or was he just omniscient that way – of course these were the thoughts going through my head as I – no we – sped along the side streets. It took me a moment but I soon realized that indeed we were not heading back towards any means of transportation, not even towards my flat. We were, surprisingly considering the disparity in distance and the who time space continuum, actually heading towards the western gates of Kensington Park.

"She's following us" Puck had the decency of informing me without turning his head. He sounded calm considering the matter, not as if there was some horror from the Greek myths coming after us on a job for the lady who wanted to spill my blood. This put Chastity's bitchiness on a whole new level, even if some of her taunts had drawn psychological blood.

We reached the center of the park in seconds – why is it always the center, why can it never be the furthermost corner from the left and three degrees south or something like that? Everyone now a days had those thing a majigs, what do you call them GPS so having something in the center or the middle as a description of location was so obsolete.  
But I digress – because yes I do that often – once we reached center, there was a star shaped fountain bowl with you guessed it a unicorn and a lion fighting for the crown – Puck told me later that my "star shaped fountain" was actually a pentagon and the tiles around said fountain were circular which obviously completed the pentagon motif. Obviously.


	11. Chapter 11

"Uhh standing water?" I looked at Puck wondering if he was trying to get me sent back into crazy" lady's hands.

"So now you think of that?" he mocked me. Right. "She wouldn't dare" he assured me.

"Why not? I demanded.

He looked at me like I was an idiot, "Because I'm standing right here." Was that a duh hanging off the end of the sentence or what.

"And this is supposed to change the situation how?" I demanded, especially considering his presence hadn't stopped Gwendolyn from sending a freaking Medusa after us.

"With stone face back there she can always claim that it was a free agent on which she had placed no duty on, which no one would believe but at least the forms would be there and she could slip through the loophole. Bureaucracy you know? But if she tries to take you here there would be no negotiating out of such a blatant statement, especially since the king has made a point of actively voicing his displeasure of the kidnapping of humans. Especially you. Although come to think of it he did originally capture the lady Sarah so... a bit of a double standard there." He continued musing in silence, an amused smirk on the corner of his lips despite the situation.

"So you're basically useless in a fight" I deadpanned.

"S'not like you're any better" he argued back still not really taking his attention away from puttering around the statue in the middle of the fountain. And when I say puttering I mean fluttering around on the tiniest wings ever that sprouted out of his back and didn't look like they could hold him up at all. "Ah ha" he said triumphantly poking something at the base of the statue. "Although you do have my stunning intellect that is totally going to tip the scales." He pulled something out and with a click there was a glow of the strange carvings that were revealed – because one normally finds gaelic carved on twentieth century stonework – and I felt a forcefield pull itself just in time as blonde bimbo finally made her appearance. Seriously slow considering a human had outpaced a purely magical creature - although I expect part of the reason was because Puck had practically been flying while dragging me along. And Medusas, for all the perks their identifications gave them, didn't have wings and the whole fact that their innate being was made of stone – yeah that kind of explained it. They also were really not known for their intelligence, as expected by this one in particular's taking on the appearance of not only a blonde but a stereotypical cheerleader. 

She rammed straight into the barrier which to her should have been visible to her eyes either that or she was too presumptive of her own strength and God didn't that sound weird that the perfect little size zero Chastity had strength. Her secret weapon, or not so secret since it was handed down in mythology about it, her eyes of course would still work perfectly well despite the barrier, and I had to make a point not to look directly at them. I mean seriously they swirled and were just so eye catching. Oh for a hand mirror or even Perseus or was it Theseus, I could never keep them straight as the Greek's really had a thing about similar names for their heroes, do you think they were actually able to keep them straight?

"So Puck" I looked over at him in order to distract myself from the fascinating sight of Chastity pounding her fists on a blue transparent wall and stomping around in her humongous wedges. "Just what are we supposed to do now 'cause I have the strangest feeling that she" I gestured at what appeared to be a blonde valley girl picking up stones and throwing them at thin air "isn't planning on leaving for quite a while and I am wondering if the barrier can stand up to a full fledged Medusa attack?"  
The barrier was already starting to tremble a little. Puck still looked way too sure of himself lost in the self congratulation of outsmarting something that obviously wasn't intended to have a large among of brain stuffing. It's like my mother was always muttering about being smarter than the fish when we went out to the old creek to try to "get back to our roots with nature" and supply our own food source. There's a definite reason supermarkets were invented and why the hell should I care whether or not a marine animal has more intellect than I? Hasn't she read those studies about the dolphins having human sized brains or something of the like?

Well anyways he was still smirking in an off putting manner and I wanted to poke his chest to see if it would actually deflate like you see them do in the movies. But a large screech snapped him out of his reverie. Oh great now the thing was clawing the barrier and looking far too pleased with herself.

But before we could seriously start panicking – since her scratching was beginning to form slice patterns along the barrier – a dark motorcycle rode into the plaza. Now normally bikes are really not allowed in the park proper, so the rider must of terrorized some poor guard or had the gall to ride straight through the gates but I wasn't arguing. Despite ruining the historicality of the gardens and all that environmentalistic stuff that the hippies – because yes there were still hippies even to this day – are always bewailing, the guy was saving our absence of stony -ness. He rode straight at the Medusa and being slow she didn't manage to move quickly enough to dodge, but again being stone it didn't do much damage. The thing that did freak it out enough to flee though was when said bike rider began pouring what looked like lightning from his hands at the monster. With a last shriek and crunch bone-like sound Chastity too off with a weird limp since one of her heels had broken at the heel.  
"Well now that that's taken care of" Puck said brushing his hands off abruptly as if this whole thing had been part of his grand master plan.

You know with the whole James Dean thing mixed with prince on white horse sweeping into the rescue bit the biker had going for him I was completely expecting him to be a complete jerk with ideas of his own grandiosity. And he kind of did live up to those expectations at least on the rudeness.

He pulled off his helmet and I was all set on the defensive mortal girl part but he proceeded to ignore me puttering around the bike making sure it was okay and cooing at it like it was the most precious thing to him in the world. Not that I was an attention seeker but I was a little put out.

"That was fantastic" the strange man finally voiced in a tone loud enough for us to hear. He was handsome, no doubt about that with swept back reddish brown hair and a bright blue eye the other one was covered by a nasty looking scar that only served to make him look more dashing and risque if the fact that he was wearing a blue velvet frock coat under his leathers wasn't enough. He had one ring pierced through his left ear lobe and the cockiest grin ever even competing with the smuggler smirk Han Solo sported – and believe me I'd know since my mother was obsessed with Harrison Ford and I don't know how many times we had watched Star Wars under the guise of it being – or her saying that it was – my favourite movie. Dude I don't even watch movies most of the time so where she got that idea from I don't even want to know.  
"Kit Marlowe as I'm sure you've heard of me I won't do the whole life story" it was a boast if I'd ever heard one so I decided I would mess with him a little. Yes that's me destroyer of men's egos. Thousands had fallen beneath my verbal footsteps. I crush them as I walk muahaha.

"Nope" I purposely played the nonchalant. I could tell Puck was amused by my tormenting the biker – sensing a little rivalry here? - but that made sense since he knew my focus of study and what history slash literature student worth his or her salt didn't actually know who the Christopher Marlowe was. It was like not knowing Shakespeare or like if a musician player didn't know Elvis. It was epic.

And in all truth, Marlowe was one of my favourite playwrights even going so far to say he was perhaps better than the Bard himself, although you must never mention that opinion to Dylan or he will go red and then purple and won't talk to you for a week because you said such heresy or even thought such a thing. It wasn't the playwright that I didn't like it was this new modernized or at least semi modern individual who was sure that he was all that and that the ladies couldn't get enough of him. Why I ask you?

"Not know me not know of Marlowe?" I think I'd broken his brain. "what has these so called universities been teaching? What has happened to the youth of nowadays?" Okay two things, one, his universities were completely ecclesiastical so what was he talking about asking if the universities taught plays, the universities of his time which were admittedly the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and somewhat limited, had considered such matters below the thoughts of the high intellectuals. And secondly I am offended for my youth.

"What are you doing here Kit?" Puck interrupted our face off.

"As you can see" Kit gestured towards where the Medusa had run off “ She is gathering forces without qualms and sending them above. That one is most likely off to reconnaissance with reinforcements and I only held victory because I had the element of surprise." Kit looked me straight in the eyes. "It's no longer safe up here for you despite the - " he paused for a second considering " - indisputable protection Puck " Yeah definitely rivalry there.

"And I suppose the issue of me surviving there has suddenly disappeared?" I asked sharply.


	12. Chapter 12

"It's either live there or die a horrible death ripped to pieces or turned to stone and crushed up here. Which would you rather darling?" he snarled. Oh looks like I touched a nerve – which I totally should have realized considering Kit was some three or four centuries late and really should have been a mouldering corpse if even that. What was the rate of decomposition anyways?

I thought this was something I would have jumped at, despite the weirdness of the inhabitants of Faerie it was vastly preferable to my substandard existence up here. My father was gone somewhere and my mother barely tolerated me beyond the image of having a daughter and school wasn't the most successful so I really had no prospects after I graduated. But somehow I paused, I could leave and be gone for hundreds of years or less depending on the whim of the magic and as the poem said when I returned, if I ever returned, my friends would all be dead.

So really did I want to leave? But on the other hand, wouldn't I be leaving anyways if I was dead. And I highly doubted any creatures of Gwendolyn would hold my friends and families sacrosanct. I got the feeling that to her humans were just a level down on the food chain of what wasn't even survival.

"Decision made?" Puck asked surprisingly soft.

Kit was prancing at the bit restless behind what he obviously considered the only reasonable answer to such a conundrum and who was I kidding? I didn't want to die like that I didn't want my friends to die like that. I know heroines – because I had apparently taken up the role of fair heroine – are all sacrificing and really, they were incredibly stupid since the moral answer isn't always the practical one and bloody hell I was human – or at least right now I was, I wasn't sure what would happen to me at a later date – we can't always do the principled thing. Blasphemy and what not.

"Well let's get going now that the lady has made her choice" Kit drawled sarcastically. Ooo I was a freaking lady now I must have really annoyed him or something because I so obviously was not anything close to ladylike. But without any further discussion Kit grabbed my hand and pulling something green and glowy out of his breast pocket he pressed it into my hand so hard that it bled. 

He chanted something in a language that I had never heard before – granted I only knew English, could grasp Spanish, and had barely two terms' worth of French so it really wasn't that hard to speak in a language I didn't know, either that or he was speaking in tongues – and practically ground the stone into my hand. Dude whatever happened to delicate lady who you had to treat like porcelain? He must have become more acclimated to the times than I had previously thought.

 

I could feel a pulling sensation and the world around me almost seemed to be streaking. This definitely wasn't the instantaneous transportation of the royal family because it felt like I was being pulled through some sort of strainer. Would I come out in spaghetti strips that would have to be pieced together on the other side?   
Puck grasped my arm and I barely felt it, too wrapped up in the feel of the sensation and watching my world streak out into flashes of color predominated by greys and browns. And this would be the last glimpse I had of everything I knew?

And then it was gone and we were elsewhere. I'd never been there before since it was not the private chambers of their majesties. I suppose it made sense that Kit did not have any sort of standing invite to barge unannounced into the royal bed chambers, he would overuse it for sure.

This time, we were in what appeared to be a side chamber off of a main hall not really a closet since it was about the size of the master bedroom in my house back home plus the bathroom, but it was nothing compared to what I had seen in the royal chambers.  
The room didn't seem to be doing much besides holding a bunch of weaponry decorations along the walls with large wooden trunks pushed up against the corners of the room. It was only when Kit proceeded to pull some of said decorations off the racks that I changed my opinion to thinking of the room as a kind of armory. Really my above ground standards could no longer apply since here, in Faerie, it actually was necessary to have such a room to hold weaponry. It wasn't just a way for wannabe Renaissance Faire and live action players to show off and have a setting to smoke and pretend they were some three centuries back in.   
In fact, while there were none of the modern day weaponry revolving around guns and bomb devices, the design of the swords were relatively modern. None of that claymore and bare poorly made metallurgy. And the styles varied from french epee all the way to Arabian scimitars. There was also a variety of broadswords and lightweight blades with delicate designs etched into their blades and handles.   
Kit grabbed one of the simpler ones with a long blade and a leather wrap around the handle. He swung it around with familiarity.  
Puck, in the mean time, had pried open one of the chests and was digging through it, the lower half of his body sticking out from the lid.

"Here" Kit thrust a short blade into my hands. "Get used to it." I was reminded sharply of the scene from Tolkien’s trilogy when the four hobbits are each handed daggers to act as swords by Bombadil – because yes I had actually read the book despite how good the cinema versions were they couldn't actually compete with having the text in your hands.  
And here I was thinking that I would find sanctuary here or something, it felt more like I had entered a war zone, although that might have had something to do with the fact that we had walked – sorry teleported – into a room full of various ways to kill or at least do serious physical damage to an opponent. And here I am wondering just what the heck this is going to do against Gwendolyn? She didn't seem the type to just stick around and wait for you to figure out how to handle a sword. Hell, I don't think she would be involved in such a sweaty muscle oriented kind of fight anyways. I know if I was in her place I certainly wouldn't.  
Puck had more of the right idea I thought as I saw him pull out a series of colored glowing spheres that I assumed were some magical do dad rather than going for the obvious like Kit. 

Although if my theory about Kit was right, magic couldn't really have been his thing, too much connotation with witchcraft for him to stomach. And I knew such a label would be anathema to a Renaissance man like Kit. Although how he reasoned that living with the fairies was any better I wasn't quite sure.

"Do you have iron on you?" was Kit's next demand. I shook my head, who wears iron nowadays? Although I guess it should have been obvious that I would need some kind of warding against Gwendolyn. But wouldn't me wearing something so corrosive to the fey also injure my allies?

He extended his hand towards me wincing slightly and I could see that there were about five nails cupped in his palm. It obviously hurt him, apparently he had been in Faerie long enough to take on some of the attributes of its native inhabitants. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Puck's face scrunched in pain and he was rubbing at his wrists. Well, obviously the iron didn't need to be in direct contact for the fey to feel its presence, or maybe Puck was just more susceptible to iron's presence? I'd have to ask him about it later, and especially about the scars I glimpsed circling his wrists which were revealed by his cuffs being pulled up by how closely he rubbed the area around the scars.

"Nail them into your boots" he motioned at my shoes, handing me a hammer made out of some other metal. Silver perhaps. I faintly wondered if the hammer would do any good against some of Gwendolyn's creatures or if it would only serve to annoy them and push them further into a murderous frenzy.  
I hammered the nails into the soles of my shoes slantwise, it wouldn't do to be stepping on their points every time I walked. When I stood and took a couple steps around just to test that they stayed in all right and that their ends were not too close to my skin, they made a faint clinking sound with each step, reminiscent to the tap tap of the heels of the dancers that I used to work with in the theater department of the university. Hey, it was a summer job and it paid good money. Don't judge.

"Ready" I affirmed to Kit. Puck laughed shorty because after all it was hilarious for any of us poor humans and a minor mischief representative to be considered ready to face whatever was out there waiting for us. It wasn't anything big yet. Here in the light realms, we would not be facing the amassed armies of death and darkness, no matter what Kit exaggerated about. No, this was just a pre-emptive move to make sure that when I did (because it was a “when” with my luck) I would definitely have to deal with Gwendolyn face to face even if Jareth could hold off whatever plots she was making, I was going to be here for a really long time and there were just too many opportunities. After all, Jareth and Sarah couldn't always be watching my back and making sure I was safe, they had a kingdom to rule too – I wasn't without some small means of defense. Even though they would hardly have done any damage or serve as any real protection, they were a stop gap a way of stalling. Or at least, that is what I hoped they were instead of being some kind of placebo to calm my fears. Because otherwise they were all out to get me and my conspiracy theories would turn out to be true.  
There was a small sound at the doorway and I looked over to see Sarah, this time in more practical jeans and while still a rather ornate shirt it was still not a dress. "Have you boys finished completely freaking Bridgit out yet?"

"Not quite my lady" Puck bounced off the trunk that he had been sitting on, fully appropriating his alternate role as the court jester or fool if you will. He got right up in my face and taking hold of my hand he took on an expression of woe and mournfulness as he turned my palm over and began tracing the lines on it erratically. "Death and misfortune shall follow you for the rest of your days and a red haired scallawag" – his eyes slanted towards Kit briefly -"shall, unfortunately, be your companion towards such a fate of misfortune that none shall look upon you and not feel pity." Then he laughed and with a swirl of the cape that suddenly appeared on his shoulder for theatrical effect, he was back to the laughing clown, dancing and capering. Where was the serious Robin that I had met above ground I wondered.

Sarah smiled softly as if she too was wondering where a more serious Puck was and when her face darkened with an internal shadow momentarily I could tell that she was remembering something that she made her sad, especially when she looked at Puck.

"Come Bridgit" she beckoned which even in jeans she managed to look graceful, majestic and ethereal. I was so envious. "There are things I must tell you." When Kit made to follow, I noticed Puck had pulled one of his disappearing acts again, Sarah looked pointedly at him, "Is not William looking for you, Kit? He said something about a spat overwriting that he would not want you to think you held the last word in or it would be dire for you" she commented sweetly.  
Kit paled and quickly hurried off through one of the side doors.


	13. Chapter 13

Sarah remained silent as we walked through the halls taking a route so convoluted that I was sure to have gotten lost within moments if I had tried to follow it alone. There were so many turns and curves and what appeared to be doubling-backs that I was almost beginning to feel vertigo by the time we ascended a short flight of ornate stairs to stop in front of a relatively plain doorway. When I say plain, of course, it doesn't mean that there was a lack of decorations, of course, there were carvings in gold along the borders, but they were vastly simpler than the decorations I'd seen previously even compared to the ones on the armory doors. Pushing the doors aside, we walked into a living area that doubled as a bedchamber with its own private bathroom.

"I thought you would be more comfortable with one of the smaller rooms" Sarah explained, "I remember feeling so lonely and lost when I first came here and Jareth stuck me in the second largest room in the castle" she admitted.

I wasn't arguing, the room was still huge compared to my usual standards and, at least, it was somewhat cozy.

"Let me tell you what's going on," she said sitting down in one of the chairs in the living area and gesturing towards the seat next to her. I thought I already knew what was going on, crazy bitch lady with a consistently bad hair day was trying to off me in order to somehow gain the throne.  
I sat down anyways and put on my listening face – you know the ones your teachers always expect you to have on and when you don't scowl at you until you do to the point that your face starts aching? Yeah, that one. Although I really was interested in what Sarah thought was necessary for me to know.

"This is not a new problem" she started out. "Gwendolyn has been making small attacks against the Seelie Court for ages ever since she gathered power in the twelfth century she has been making moves against the Seelie. Jareth and I are relatively new to our position so this is the perfect time for her to try and strike again while we are still adjusting, especially with your appearance. It's been done before" she admitted. "While Jareth was still the heir we had some trouble with his older brother which she quickly capitalized on by using another Bridgit. Or what she thought was a Bridgit. It turns out the girl she found was not part of the story line of actual Bridgit identities, the girl had only taken on that name because her blood mother had decided that Carson would be the perfect name for any daughter of hers so that Bridgit was a much nicer alternative."

"What happened to her," I asked softly, dreading the answer that I knew would come.

"She killed the girl anyways" Sarah made an abrupt motion with her hands, eyes angry.

"Just how bad was my mother's name choice?" I asked warily.

"It's not just something you are called anymore" she answered seriously, "it's who you are, your fate kind of sucks since you're basically a reincarnation of a destined signifier here."

"Do you know why she is doing this" I changed the subject because I knew that my life basically sucked and that it was really never going to turn out well in the end. I'd never really pictured myself as surviving past graduation, it just didn't process in my mind that I could have a life after a certain point, even if I was still dedicated to finishing my degree and doing as much as I could

"We don't know, Jareth and I think it had something to do with the way she came to power. But nobody has actually gone and asked her." She smiled at that. One of my professors, literature, of course, was always going on about the importance of motive. Motive motive one mustn't forget the motive – and it was in a particularly thick German accent that was particularly rough on all of our funny bones. That was why it was surprising to me that Sarah, who seems to have been another literature major in her past life, would forego such an important element in understanding the basic plot line. Then again maybe the Americans had a different way of understanding their texts?  
"Morgon might know though" she pondered to herself. "He might have been in contact with her though I'm not sure."

That seemed a bit too open ended to me but what the heck let's involve as many outside players as possible just to make this whole situation, even more, complicated.

"Have you figured out why she needs me specifically, besides the whole Bridgit power booster thing? Is she doing a specific ritual?" I was curious now. Was the bitch lady just out for an all out massacre or did she have a pointed goal, a goal would be nice because if we knew what it was exactly it would be that much easier to exploit her desires and to flout them.  
She looked at me consideringly -it hadn't crossed my mind before that moment that she still might be suspicious of me although what there was to be suspicious of? I was just a girl from London and my knowledge of history and literature didn't cross over as extensively into the fantastical as I later learned hers did.

"Hmm," she considered, I wasn't sure if she was debating whether or not to tell me something informative and was all set to get pissed off about keeping me out of the loop or if she was trying to figure out what to do with what she might consider my knowledge of magic. Which I emphatically did not have and was only pulling out what I knew of seventeenth-century witchcraft theory. Of course, you could throw more than half of said theory away as utterly ridiculous since, honestly? Communing with the devil by sacrificing goats? I would hope Lucifer had higher standards than that otherwise the Christian world would be fearing an utter idiot.  
"Our researcher has a theory -"

"Wait researcher?" I interrupted caught at the almost contradictory nature of the idea. I thought Faerie was still kind of stuck in the seventeenth century or something because everything looked so outdated. I mean there wasn't even electricity or the internet. If I had been one of the normal students my age who were irreversibly tied to the electronics, especially their iPhones and iPods, well I would have died of boredom, fortunately, I existed at a higher level than the normal student.

"Yes" she smiled, "our researcher, Sir Chaucer has pulled records on sacrificial magic using Bridgits." Oh well that explained it, if Chaucer who was a fourteenth centurialist and couldn't be as up to date as a digitalized grad student who was well aware of all the ins and outs of databases as well as how to gain access to a few of them while still remaining on the border lines of legal was and I quote pulling records, she had to be talking of physical and I mean copied and bound sources of information, not the virtual information from a computer.

"She's trying to use the energy that would be released with your soul and force into a kind of geis on an as yet undetermined demon in order to have it act as her minion in destroying the royal family." Seriously my soul was involved? What was this some revival biblical theory class or what? And this demon, were we talking minion of the devil and all that fallen angel what do you call it or more like a night beast on steroids. Not that one or the other was better or worse, I just wanted to know exactly what I would be dealing with it helped me stop from becoming all out hysteric. Or at least, I hoped it would stop me from descending into that kind of madness.

"Our court will be in high alert for a while" she confided, "but it will also be vulnerable because it will be relying solely on Jareth for its power base" with that she gently placed her hand on her stomach which I now noticed was beginning to show the slightest bump. 

Ahh, that actually made more sense in the long run. Why else would defenses be down? I had been a little miffed that considering this was supposed to be such a safe place and that they had brought me here on that understanding, that there had still been such a rush of panic about a possible invasion and my loss. But if everyone was focused on a queen that regrettably would not be up to her full strength, it was okay somehow.

"He will be our first" she confided with a small smile.

"You know his gender already?" More like how the hell did you know this without ultrasound?

"Yes, Jareth took me above ground to get it checked. I told him that even though I loved this place and the magic. I was going under labor with all the newest innovations in medicine and technology and under anesthesia. He didn't argue" she laughed.  
I was silent for a few awkward moments – don't get me wrong I was happy for them, well more for Sarah but if Jareth made her happy who was I to judge – this kind of maternal bliss was something that I never thought I would get to experience considering I had just departed the mortal world where the majority of my race – scratch that all of my race – lived in and anyways I hadn't had the best luck with males anyways. There was perhaps one boy who might have liked me before my father went all awol on us but I think the all around aura of depression and loss must have scared him off since I never noticed the feeling appear on his face afterwards, and then the other two who were great friends and I love them to pieces now, well, they turned out to be more interested in their own sex. Which just goes to show how broken my gay radar is to the point that I doubt the sexuality of every boy I meet now.


	14. Chapter 14

It could have gotten much more awkward since I could see Sarah gearing herself up for the third degree and I so needed my lack of love life – which apparently was more obvious than I thought – publicised in this world as well as the one I had just pseudo escaped – because I just know Chastity had a field day with the information and that was how so many of my classmates seemed to just know what a single loser slash wallflower I was.

Only Jenna who was single herself and claimed that was exactly how she wanted to be because all boys were obviously heathens and would have inevitably hurt her anyways – yeah her mother had so been in a by the book bad divorce relationship and now had something of a revolving bedroom door, who knows where her actual father was since it wasn't like he paid the support money he was supposed to – and Dylan. Well Dylan had never seemed that interested in me and I had a hard time keeping track of which gender interest or personality he was allowing dominance at the moment. I say personality, but really Dylan didn't have multiple personalities, it was more he liked to mess with people's minds by presenting the extreme in order to, as he says, reveal all stereotypes and prejudices for the world to pass judgement on.

I missed them so much already just thinking about their weird quirks. And yet I hadn't even been gone a good twenty four hours.

Just then Puck burst into the room again disregarding the whole knock first or be blasted off your feet because you interrupted the royal couple doing what married people did and damn you to hell Robin I can't actually kill you because the queen likes you to much rule that he had a close relationship to, experiencing its charms too many times to count.

But he didn't stop at her glare. It wasn't the evil death ridden glare of a couple trysting more like the what if I was damnit Puck there's a closed door for a reason glare but Puck completely disregarded its power. Even if this wasn't the royal chambers and one shouldn't expect the newcomer to already have developed that kind of relationship with the inhabitants of Faerie, it was the principle of the matter.

"Fire m'lady" he gasped out and I suddenly noticed how haggard he looked with smoke staining one of his cheeks and burnt patches on his shirt sleeves, far different from the put together and confident figure that he was before.

"What?" Sarah asked confused. True his exclamation had been a bit jumbled and I wasn't sure just how often he cried wolf so it was reasonable to be somewhat lost in whatever declamation he chose to make. Puck was in charge of mischief and chaos after all.

"Fire at the west gate there's a -" then he muttered some word that meant absolutely nothing to me but I assumed it was kind of signal phrase like that Tolkien trope there's fire in the deep and the balrog is coming, oh wait it was there are drums in the deep, well damn I'm losing my literary references already. But whatever it was he said it made Sarah pale and quickly gather herself.

"What is being done about it?" she demanded while she helped me up, talking over her shoulder to the jittery Puck.

"It's close my lady and heading towards the core. We cannot-"

"Stop" she interrupted him. "What is being done about it" she repeated. Obviously not interested in Puck's rant about the futility of their actions and about how all would be lost in the darkness and they would all die and he was too young and handsome to die, which I could just see bursting on the edge of his tongue.

He took a deep breath and then pulled his posture straight reaching up and brushing a piece of ash from his shoulder. "The water naiads are trying to restrain the fire and the king has his forces out to deal with the -" it sounded like he said something a cross between a dragon and a freyr dach urak nai shitara – or something like.

She gave a nod and pulled a sword out of the scabbard on her belt. How the heck had she been moving around with that thing on her hip without me noticing?  
"Well?" she asked commandingly as she headed towards the door, "are we going to help or not?" I wondered just what she expected me to be able to do because hello? Mortal girl here, and while I might contain large amounts of power inside me and all that shit, it wasn't something that I could actually use I mean true I could be used as a kind of menial labor hauling water buckets but somehow I doubted that was what she had in mind since there were water spirits for crying out loud what did she need with tiny little buckets?

But we were going and I left my rooms behind – look I had already appropriated the idea of mine which was all well and good I suppose considering it looked like they would be my main residence for the next couple centuries unless I died in this conflict because it was looking more and more likely and oh yeah I had a blasted pointy stick to which I would most likely do more damage to myself than anyone else except perhaps those surrounding me be they friends or foes. Because I certainly didn't know how to use it.

Puck looked over me as we speed walked post haste to wherever the heck we were going, perhaps sensing my internal monologue and broaching panic. His eye quirked up at me.  
"The water mages will use you as a channel for their power" he whispered leaning towards me slightly. An amazing feat considering we were still walking and he was basically over extending his body's axis. Stupid flexible fairies.

What the hell so basically my energy source was going to be sucked out of me how? Like all vampire-y or close contact or? This was not helping my level of calm. But we were walking and apparently the fire must have been closer than I thought which made me all kinds of cheerful about the warning and fire alarm system in this place, oh wait no freaking electricity so the whole place could burn down and you wouldn't notice until smoke started seeping under your door. Wait what if I was asleep? Yay a new level of freaked out has just broached upon my mind.

Before I could process we stopped in front of a mirror – seriously another mirror, what the fuck it was like all the people here were image oriented or something, even if these reflective devices served as transportation I was under the impression that only the one Hoggle had found in the underground cavern had such a power and were we not going towards the fire rather than back above. But apparently mirrors work within one realm as well, it was only Hoggle's special mirror that was able to transport between above and below past the mystical divide that separated Faerie from the purely physical molten core that the physics academics are always going on about. Quite different from a literature academic's take on it and it turns out that both were right in a way huh, who'd have thunk.

And again with the mirror travel slower than the underground one, obviously not as powerful since I actually felt the in between place which was freaky by the way all grey and mist-like I swear I felt something brush up against me and curl around my legs like some kind of demonic cat – not that cats were anything less than demonic even real physical ones. Up above they were all out to get you. I am so a dog person they actually like you when you're not proffering food, cats will ignore your existence up to that point but when you do take out the victuals well gee they love you to pieces.

Creepy no? But we finally appeared at the place of the I hesitate to say battle because it really wasn't more like a stare off. The fire was raging around the figures there but they didn't seem to be doing anything. Well the water naiads were moving around but I could see that they were slowing down since this didn't look like your everyday fire – because there are so many fires in London – this raged and billowed out higher than any source of wood or other raw material.

There was something in there I could almost feel it – not because I had any kind of magical talent or senses - God forbid, there was already too many complications in my life but no – it was hungry, ravenous and it was approaching us quickly, the fire was just the first signs that something was desperately wrong. And despite how I might describe it, the field of battle if you will was not on some vast war plain of some large edifice like you see in Hollywood films.


	15. Chapter 15

The area was outside of the castle proper, since I could see it looming darkly in the distance - and, of course, being me I wondered why the magic, because of course there was magic involved, couldn't have made it daylight or was it the smoke billowing off from the cumulgramation was darkening the skies to that point. Because here was the true heart of darkness, - excuse me, high school English teacher who had spent too many weeks on Conrad was influencing me once again.

Regardless, the fire was based around a small hut like inhabitance that really didn't look like much. Oh besides the point that, while the flames might be around the building, none was touching it yet and although it looked to be made of old dry sticks, nothing was burning since no spark had touched it. But then there was the interesting yet term added to that statement since the forces of what I suppose one should call good had also yet to be able to discard the flames, and something was coming.

While I was taking all of this in Puck had managed to drag me away from the mirror, because of course, there was a mirror on the walls of one of the properties nearby, fortunately, a stone wall that, while crumbling and broken through in places, still was not burning and it made me wonder what was so important about an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. I should really learn not to assume things since everything is not as it appears.

There was a burning sensation along my arms as if something was crawling there and leaving scorched etchings, gradually getting more and more painful. Puck glanced over at me as I let out a small whimper. It wasn't a girly whimper, not one of those hysterical shrieks that you always see the damsels in distress with long flowy blonde hair and immaculate white dresses emit at the slightest bit of uncomfort, but seriously I felt like knives were being carved down the sides of my arms. Which they weren't since I could see no blood, but that only served to make the pain creepier, not less painful.

Puck glanced at me confused, there were no obvious signs of why I was rubbing my arms so frantically but his eyes widened in a second and quickly made some hand motion – again with the strange language can't a girl get by with rudimentary Spanish and french? - and a wash of cool sensation lifted over me as a kind of green blue bubble, similar to what I'd seen before in the park except smaller and less solid looking formed up around me. I could feel him tense a little as the bubble sent all the way around me not just above the ground level but below my feet to. I guess he must be sensitive to the iron. They might just be more trouble than they were worth if they were not doing anything against some fire magic eating into my skin.

"You are mage sensitive?" he asked with a small tinge of suspicion and almost fear in his voice. What was with everyone looking like I was out to get them if I even touched upon the subject of magic? Did I seriously look like a questionable character? Wow, that would have been almost flattering.

"Umm, what?" yeah because I actually knew what he was talking about.

"An adept" he answered almost patiently, still keeping clear of my reach. It was interesting that we could have a kind of tea-side conversation in the midst of a raging inferno, but hey I wasn't doing anything, or, at least, I didn't know if I was supposed to be doing anything. "You feel the surrounding magic and, with training" – ah the qualifier in that statement – "you should be able to harness it. Extremely powerful." He muttered the last part and appeared to be slightly disturbed by the prospect.

"Okay, woohoo and everything" I snarked, "but right now I'm in a bit of a bind since no I don't actually have said training and I'm stuck in the middle of a raging firestorm without any clue on what I'm supposed to be doing here." I could feel my voice getting steadily higher at the same time it got louder. And charging panic mode now. Make it so number one.  
Puck smiled seemingly relieved at the fact that in truth I was still dependent on him. Bloody fairies and their power playing and politics.

He smirked at me showing more of his teeth than was socially acceptable for it to be considered a smile. "Oh, you will" it was a little bit of a threat and a little bit of a promise, either way, it did not bode well for me.

Just then I felt a hand grasp my harm. I had been so focused on my, not quite conversation with Puck more like him handing out bits and pieces of important information and me demanding more and becoming frustrated when he refused it. It was like what one of my professors complained about how students are always feeling entitled to their professors time and knowledge with the anger involved when it wasn't easily accessible. Except I felt completely justified because the information was vital to my continued existence among those who are labeled as the living. And indeed, he was so asking for it considering the fact that he was practically taunting me for my lack of these important facts.

But back to the hand. It belonged to an even stranger figure than some of the individuals I had seen above. It wasn't scary like a lot of those individuals had been, which I took to mean that most of those were from the wrong sides of the track based on what I had observed around here, no, this man – because he was a man despite additions – was not scary per se just a little odd to look at. He had the lower quarters of a lion and a strong rack of antlers on the top of his head, not as if they had been planted there by some kind of supernatural glue, but seriously growing out of his skull. He had the kind of face that should've been beneath a lot of gray hair with a long beard similar to Dumbledore's or even Gandalf's but with a disturbing lack instead his hair was a deep brown with a distinct lack of silver. His eyes were also blue but looked so scattered and crinkled at the corners that it was a mix between despondency and the look of an addict that was high enough to touch Babylon's tower that he presented as he swayed in front of me slightly.

"Hallo miss" he slurs out at me and I'm slightly aghast that this drunkard who looks like he should be ages older and really must have had a dye job that actually went better than expected is acting as if we are the best of buds.

"Who?" I start, but he interrupts.

"Why I am" he sways a moment leaning on me to steady himself as he pulls a flask out of some mysterious pocket and chugs part of it. Puck is looking on in disgust

"Our esteemable Sir Chaucer researcher and mage extraordinaire" he supplies deftly managing to snag the flask and pour its contents on the ground. "You've been in the stock of wine again haven't you Chaucer" he demands getting right up in his face. "You know just because the situation is heating up a little is no need to get rip roaring drunk you idiot."

"I am a priest. I am privileged and entitled and some other rot that I hardly think is important" Sir Chaucer pleads, pushing Puck away and only managing to stumble and barely keeping himself from tipping over and landing flat on his rear.

"No, you're not," Puck says almost amiably as he rights the author newly made – or at least newly in terms of its proximity to his supposed death – knight brushing him off and snagging a few more of the flasks in Sir Chaucer's pockets without him noticing.

And isn't this the oddest conversation to be having while everyone else of importance is fighting to stave off a growing inferno and the approaching being that I had been feeling for ages had finally arrived and was here in all of its flaming glory.

It wasn't a balrog. How disappointing. It wasn't even big and terrible, at least not in appearance. What did appear was a tiny shriveled man with a black patch over his right eye and a barrel of gunpowder held close in his arms. Oh and there were flames licking around his skin, not setting off said gunpowder but still terrifying along with the completely insane grin and the glittering of his one good eye. Completely terrifying because you knew that there was nothing you could say that would stop him from doing whatever he pleased including blowing the whole place sky high. That was why people like him, suicide bombers and other people willing to martyr themselves are the greatest nightmare of all. You don't have to necessarily be big and imposing to put the fear – well not of God in this place. Pagan central much? - but still fear of some kind of divine retribution.

"Old Man Delbaeth, fire bringer death dealer" Puck whispered to me half in awe but about three times more in fear.

The figure looked straight at me "So you know me do you?" he asked with the voice of a tired old man, but then it shifted into something darker and more bestial in nature, "Well my dear" – I wasn't his anything – "you're about to know me a lot better" then he raised his head, straightening his hunched body and flames began pouring toward me.  
Of course, that was when all the "good" forces deluged down on me into a kind of line of defense pretty much abandoning the rest of their posts. Huh, flattering. That was then I noticed that Sarah had returned from speaking with the forces aligned against the fire, particularly the naiads and was standing beside me once more. Oh.

Puck had finished brushing Sir Chaucer down and relieving him of any hidden liquids which there were a lot of. Then once the man had straightened Puck proceeded to mutter something else while twitching his fingers, what I had come to see as his form of spell work, and a splash of water went into Chaucer's face. Once he had recovered from the shock and was looking belligerent but, at least, sober. Apparently the "water"had been some kind of hangover potion that the world wished was not just a figment of Rowling's imagination. Puck then proceeded to throw another batch of water in his face.

"What was that for?" Chaucer demanded wiping his face with his sleeve and looking worse for wear with his hair plastered to his face and his coat hanging from his frame in sopping folds.

"The smell" Puck answered snidely, smiling a little at his pirate reference. Because Puck made a wonderful Jack Sparrow and Hollywood should have figured that out before casting that actor whose name I really should remember but didn't actually care enough to be worried about forgetting.

With a shrug, Sir Chaucer proceeded to grab my arm once more and proceeded to reach into my core and start draining without even a by your leave. Power pouring into the surrounding figures at the same time.

"Hold still girl" I had started to squirm out of his grip but stopped in surprise. Well I never. I think I liked the drunk Chaucer better than this miscreant, at least, he pretended to be polite and didn't go around grabbing young women and man handling them.

Sarah, at least, looked peeved at his actions but I noticed she didn't actually make a move to stop him. Nice, shows what kind of friends I have down here. But then Sir Chaucer broke through what I learned later was the first layer of my power, apparently I had a lot more than expected otherwise there would have been major repercussions on my health and sanity if he had done that on someone with less energy than me. But Sir Chaucer had a little bit more knowledge of the magical beings than most and especially in regards to Bridgit figures considering all the research he had just done on my importance. But the first layer, as I was saying, once it was broken through and he immediately started on the second. I was still lucid but the world seemed to be dimmer and less important as the beginnings of lethargy started working on my limbs almost like that feel when you know you should stop reading fanfictions and actually go to sleep but another cup of coffee will keep you awake for an hour or so but the caffeine has yet to fully hit your nervous system.

So sleepy. The world blurred to blues and greens and I was faintly aware of a reddish hue on the edge of my vision just barely feeling until I reached the point where physical senses were no more and it was all about the magic. I could tell where each particle of my power was going to. To the defense of the barrier to the putting out of the flames to the sheltering of the house – why was that hut so important anyways, there was a lot of energy being poured into protecting that single building when it didn't even look anything more than an abandoned hovel? - and the power being put into holding back Old Man Fire Shape.


	16. Chapter 16

I didn't see what actually happened to him but I highly doubt he was completely destroyed, after all, he was one of the old deities, minor but still worshipped by some and while someone believed in him he would still continue to exist if at the very least in their minds. Which made me wonder just why he had attacked. Was he serving his own pleasure if so what had we done to piss him off so drastically, and if he was doing it at the command of Gwendolyn this brought two questions to my mind. One: where did she gain such power to command gods and why the heck did she need me if she had such power, and two: if he was her ally what was their bargain and how could we match it. Although really, you didn't bargain with the old gods, you were either manipulated by them or dead, I wasn't sure which one was better.

I suddenly felt a lessening of intensity in the aspects pulling on my magic and then a pause before the wave hit me. Backlash from hell. Not literally just Chaucer letting the strain go slack instead of gradually allowing me to feed the energy back into myself. He was such an academic. Didn't even think of what such power would do to someone. Anyways, it forcefully slammed into me and I fell backwards. Lights out for Bridgit. There wasn't even a moment of clarity in between lucidity and darkness it was only awake one moment and then sweet nothing. A falling sensation my dreams were filled with them, no lasting images just eternal falling – I wonder if that means something symbolic or I don't know maybe it was because when I was knocked out. 

I fell to the ground.

Whatever. When I woke back up I was in my bed chambers once more, not the bed I was used to above with its old patched quilt and worn sheets the pillow plumped just right. No this was the chambers in the castle beyond the city, but it was still extraordinarily comfortable. Or it would have been if I didn't have a pounding headache similar to the ones you get after a very late, but fun, Friday night out on the town, and if my room wasn't hosting Sir Chaucer, Puck and Sarah who was loudly lecturing the said knight.

"I cannot believe you" oh she wasn't just lecturing she was railing and her dulcet tones were pounding against my head. "How could you just start draining her without the proper rituals or without even drawing a circle of protection. She could be an empty corpse if she hadn't been so powerful."

"But she was" Sir Chaucer had the gall to point out sulkily.

"That's not the point you imbecile" oo biting insult it was almost worth dying again from some bloke pounding on my skull with a sledgehammer. Key word almost.

I burrowed my head into my pillow pulling the coverlet up over my eyes in an effort to block out the sound of their voices. No such luck. But at least, they shut up scratch that at least they made a minor effort to quiet their voices as they continued to yell at each other. Well, it was really more Sarah yelling at Sir Chaucer and him making small pithy remarks that only served to incite Sarah's anger even further.

"Enough" Jareth commanded as he entered the room. "You two are acting like children" he scolded sternly softening his words by reaching over and placing his chin on Sarah's shoulder, arms encircling her waist, still glaring at Sir Chaucer who only looked huffy, not apologetic in any way or form. "Can not you to see our guest needs her beauty sleep?"

Oh, I liked him now, he was on my side in the greater scheme of things and at worst would get the two hammers away from my skull.

I heard the door shut behind them and the lights dimmed once more, I allowed myself to drift back into the unbiased arms of sweet sleep.

When I woke up once more the lights were still darkened but I got the sense that it was actually supposed to be night – or at least a version of night since the time of day was completely up to the whims of magic and could change with the barest hint of warning even skipping the twilight and daybreak periods of time if it willed – since there were no voices to be heard and all was silent beyond my doors. I really should learn to question such things since nothing moving and no sounds at all inevitably meant trouble. Even if said trouble was not intended for me, though it usually was.

There were shadows crawling around the floors and corners of my room which took me a moment to notice since I think someone had slipped me something, I vaguely remembered waking enough to sip some kind of liquid without fully opening my eyes. Whatever it was I was grateful since my headache was completely gone by now and even though it took me a moment I still noticed.

And yeah it completely freaked me out since where there are shadows there is usually something causing them, especially when they are moving and it wasn't the branches of the trees through the window which it usually would have been if I was a child having night fears. But there were no windows in my room.

Well, it wasn't a thing exactly, not a physical substance. But it was a feel a sensation of something slimy crawling over my skin in an almost caressing manner which made it even more disturbing, and the feel of darkness invading my mind and making me feel as if all hope was lost and that the best option would be immediate surrender. Very dementor-like and all that without the soul-sucking cold feeling that Harry supposedly felt when in their presence. Besides, I highly doubted Rowling actually had knowledge of fairies to the point that she had actually met sections of the inhabitants of Faerie. Her books were not that imaginative, although I could well believe that, if she had dreamed up members of below ground, it would have been the bad part.

"Bridgit" a voice purred in my ear. It wasn't actually a sound it was more of a mental message with a vague tickling in my ear.

Hearing voices Bridgit? That was the first sign of madness, or so they said. Although I really think that there are other things that kind of forewarn someone of borderline insanity before you hit the full monty.

"Bridgit" the voice repeated again. "You are powerful too powerful to be wasted amongst these plebeian magic users. Join us. We could make you great." Oh please because they were the dark side had cookies and pie which reminded me I was really hungry. I got out of bed to go find some food but something caught against my heel and tripped me, making me fall back on the bed. "Listen!" the voice demanded.

It was a sharp feminine voice whose snake-like quality was only emphasized when she got a little riled up about something, and I was obviously pissing her off.

The hisses started transitioning into a kind of humming, very sibilant and yet mesmerising in their quality. I could feel my awareness fading in and out almost like I was half asleep and partly dreaming and I didn't care it wasn't important anymore. All the things that I had been so worried about, you know surviving and making sure that Sarah and her child remained safe well it wasn't like I wished her ill, but it felt like her status was no longer a concern of mine and even my own life was somehow transient and while I understood I could effect it, so what? So what if I moved down a certain path the end would happen if it wanted to happen. It was a lot like the feeling I got when one of my so-called friends previous to Jenna had slipped something into my drink -which I found out later was ecstasy and I never wanted to feel that way again in hindsight – I was tripping for hours since my body is apparently a bit of a lightweight.

But it was almost nice, like what I would think a mother's embrace would be like. My mom had stopped hugging me like that years ago now it was all about what I should do or what I did wrong. I'd forgotten what it was like to be a small child in a mother's embrace. It was chillier and stiffer than I thought but still, at least, it was something except now it started getting tighter almost strangling and there was a second pair of arms where there was not supposed to be any.

So not the good. At that point -yeah I know belated much – I started struggling against the ropelike arms but they only started getting tighter and it was almost like they were multiplying. It was also one of those things that prove my insanity since they weren't physically there. I couldn't actually pry these limbs off they were all mental.  
Great this was working on a pattern now. First drowning, now asphyxiation I was going to get a reputation or something.

I was fully awake now yet the room was already spinning as I thrashed around trying to shake whatever had me off of my body but it just kept moving and reconfiguring around me. I couldn't even scream since one of the misshapen limbs was covering my mouth.

"Silly little Bridgit thinks she can escape the Lost" it – because it could no longer be purely a she – hissed into my ear. "The Lost always find you and then bind her to Her will"


	17. Chapter 17

And my brain which is of course just a little distracted at the moment takes the time to think who the bloody hell is this 'Her' and what the fuck did she want with me? Although I suppose it should have been obvious.

"Oh, you will soon find out little Bridgit" great she was reading my mind and what the hell was with saying my name as if I was some kind of pseudo child slash doll? I was a good twenty years old thank you very much and really was not desiring to re-live my childhood in any way shape or form.

Then my doors burst open and Puck sprang into my room hacking at something around the base of my bed. Not at the thing around my neck which perturbed me momentarily until I felt said limbs go slack and disappear. A shrill wail went up into the night and I had a small instant when I saw a figure appear at the foot of my bed. Not a normal human figure even if it was shaped like a female. There were tentacles for one and her stomach was oddly translucent. With the ability to see inside it I saw an odd cumulgramation of items most of which you would find beneath the cushions of the couch in the back of the attack, that and an odd red string attached to what looked like a blackened ruby where, in a human, one's heart would be. It didn't have eyes but instead there were dark pits with something glittering avariciously in the back of them. Puck's sword was through its stomach area yet it did not bleed but oozed an oily black liquid.

It turned to me and grinned even though the sword had pierced the stone and broken whatever compulsion kept it moving despite not even being alive in the first place. "We will find you and bind you little Bridgit, never fear " it's voice tapered off and then stopped dramatically as Puck wrenched the still slightly glowing jewel from the thing's chest.

I propped myself and gasped for a few seconds while he cleaned his sword off on my sheets. Can I say eww?

"Come on. We're moving you" he ordered gruffly. Obviously, it was still early and he was no morning person.

"What was that?" I demanded resisting his efforts to get me out of the room. Hell if I was going out there without knowing what I might be facing. But on the other hand, was it better to stay here in the room with the corpse like thing which, since it wasn't living in the first place, could it really be fully dead. A conundrum.

He finally turned to face me fully dropping the arm he had been pulling at. I got a good look at his face. There was a stripe along the side of his cheek where one of the thing's tentacles had hit him and sliced through skin and his eyes were hollow with tenseness and frustration.

"What were you doing near here anyways?" I continued my questioning regardless of how sleep deprived he looked.

"Guard duty" was his short answer. "And that thing?" he jerked his head in the direction of the corpse. "That was your death and it still might be if another one comes along while you're still standing here asking me stupid questions that you, at least, could have the decency to wait to ask until we are somewhere safe."

He had a point. So I let him lead me out of the rooms carefully pacing along the walls, looking back over my shoulder every few seconds to make sure nothing was following us. I guess Puck had used too much of his energy to actually be able to transport or maybe it had something to do with our location. After all, how safe could wherever we were going be if you could just teleport inside.  
We soon entered a brightly lit area much homier than the fey sections I had seen and we stopped in front of a frankly old fashioned style door with brass knobs and it reminded me starkly of some of the paintings I had researched the sixteenth and seventeenth-century houses.  
I could hear arguing from inside the house in distinct British accents and it sounded like something about a play? And this was safe? What madness had Puck brought me in too? And it was so strange to see a serious Puck since usually he had a smile and a laugh on his face. Now he was all warrior-like as if something bad was going down. It made me even more worried than I would have been normally because you know almost being strangled was such a normal situation otherwise.

The door opened with a bang and a brunette I had never met but who I knew instantly jerked his head out.

"Well art thou entering?" the aforementioned William Shakespeare demanded in an irritable tone. His hair, or what was left of it was askew and there was a large ink stain on the right side of his cheek that looked like it originally had spelled out backwards ‘I am not what I am’. Fitting. His eyes were the bright blue of a much younger man. Younger in the sense of the point at which he had entered Faerie and ceased changing. But he didn't have the wrinkles around his eyes that Kit had around his one good eye. No such smile lines as times had been much harsher on his body despite having supposedly died in his bed unlike Kit's far more gruesome farewell to the mortal realm. I wonder what they were playing mine as?

"Well aren't you getting uppity Master Shake-Spear" Puck huffed as he stormed in moodily still dragging me behind him pulling at my arm. "It's ‘you’ to thee and nothing less" he'd put on his bigoted face again, leaning against the wall like some kind of pointy eared discontented teen with an angst complex.

Kit was leaning against the opposite wall filing his fingernails with a studied air of nonchalance. In the middle of the room was a short old-fashioned desk with a god forsaken candle almost melted completely down and casting its light on – and I am not kidding – a sheet of vellum and a chewed on quill. The sheet was splattered with ink blots and covered in a spider-like scrawl of which I could barely make out the signature. Our very own William Shakespeare, Will to his friends.

Kit prowled over eyes intent and guarded as he looked around.  
He whispered into the shell of my ear like some cast-off lover as Puck and Will continued to bicker on the other side of the room, Will sitting down in front of his desk once more. 

"Puck's never forgiven our Will for his Midsummer's Night" he whispered, breath stinking of mead and roast. Lovely. "And Will continues to threaten him with another fairy piece." Ahh, a poet and his muse. It was that kind of dynamic in their relationship that I was sensing the whole love hate thing.

"Perhaps I shall have thou" Will paused to emphasize his continual use of the derogative form, or maybe it was the thou of an intimate relationship – it was all kind of ambiguous at this point – "mauled by a bear?" he looked up into space as if thinking deeply for a moment and then pulled out a new sheet of vellum chewed on his quill's nub to moisten the ink once more, and began scribbling furiously, much to Puck's consternation.  
"Now besides all of these trivialities" Kit had backed off a little and instead was staring at me as if I was a problem that it was taking him a few moments to solve and he did not like the delay. "What happened and why have you come to our -" he paused as if trying to remember just the right word and then a lascivious grin spread across his face "boudoir? Because really Puck, you are so not my time. You on the other hand" he turned back to me " are just right." Can I say perverted old man much?

"Lay off" Puck commanded.

"Why?" Kit asked rhetorically still not moving from within my personal space. This guy had way too much confidence in his own sexuality. Either that or he thought his looks meant that he was every girls' dream.

Puck pushed himself off the wall in a very James Dean move and forced his involvement in the center of the room. Not coming too close to Kit but still confronting him, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. When had Puck become bad ass? "Because the Lost have broached the borders for her" he stated almost calmly.

"And what do you expect us to do about it?" Will demanded, quickly losing his Old English word forms as he became serious. "You know we have limited power against the Lost. We have our arms' strength but not the magical power to do much. Why have you not gone to their majesties?"

Puck ignored the latter question and jerking at me with his thumb he snarled, "She has the power to do serious damage to whatever comes at you."

Wait hold up, I got that I had power but I thought I was more of an energy source, not an actual attacking defending body. I liked being behind the front lines and this kind of power might actually put me, right in the midst of the conflict? No thank you.

"She'll need training" Kit commented looking back at me in a much more calculating way rather than the gleaming of a hormonal man.

"Hold on." I interrupted their dialogue that had been completely denying my existence in the room despite me standing right there. "What the bloody hell are the Lost?"

"The Lost are exactly what they sound like" Will explained, getting up from his chair and pacing around the room as if in another life he had been a university professor on too much caffeine. "They are the things that disappear and are forgotten. The memories in the back of the attic or under the bed. The lost things. Someone with the magic power of the darker side usually pulls them together and plants an intent within their forms." At this Puck held up the darkened jewel that he had pulled out. I hadn't even noticed that he had been carting that around with him.

"Give me that" Kit snapped, snatching it from Puck and throwing it into a trunk that he flipped open with his foot, "you don't wave that kind of thing around" he chastised.

"Anyways, as I was saying" Kit pulled out a padlock, not iron but silver, from one of his pockets and snapped it onto the chests latch, sitting down on it, he continued. "The Lost are powered with the intent of a magic user and are usually opposed by the border gates' power. The fact that this one managed to get through meant that there is an especially strong mage behind it. Three guesses on who that wielder is, and the first two don't count." Well duh.

"So training?" Puck reminded slightly miffed at the interruption to his topic.

"Talk to Sarah" Will recommended.

"Sarah's busy shoring up defenses and cannot be reached" Puck answered quickly.

"Hmm maybe not." Kit mumbled to himself. Will looked up realization breaking across his face and then a quick squint of the eyes as if the idea was distasteful. Must we? His eyes seemed to plead. Kit nodded back. Yeah silent conversation going on is totally not excluding the main topic of the conversation. No not in the least.

Kit turned back to face Puck. "You want the dark lady" he commented, pretending to be casual. "No not that dark lady" he quickly reassured me, seeing my alarmed look and slight tensing. "Will's dark lady." Was I going to be involved in some kind of menage a trois? ‘Cause that is really not what I had bargained for when I had decided to come down here. At the very least I expected my first time to be with a single male individual.

"And who is that again?" Puck had regained his amused superior smirk once more.

Will looked very disgruntled and muttered a name while looking down, a red tinge covering his cheeks. How cute, I didn't know that Shakespeare, the most well-known playwright and author of the sonnet number one fifty one could still blush at such a minor subject.  
"What was that Will?" Puck taunted.

"Silver" Will repeated still looking away and crossing his arms. Wasn't that a masculine name? If it was female it would have been some flower or light oriented name, at the very least it would have been Lady Silver. I totally didn't know Shakespeare swung that way. My lit teacher would be thrilled since he was convinced that was so but without textual evidence he couldn't write his dissertation on it and so had to settle with a thesis on gender and the other which he confided to me later was about seventy-five percent bluffing and bull shit. Well gee thanks that makes me want to go to grad school and write some eighty thousand words of nothing.

Kit sighed as if he was remembering something he did not like, "and where can we find this Silver of your's?" he asked resignedly.

Will still was not looking at us, "the furthest west forest" he answered.

"And just how am I supposed to get there without random lost things jumping out and trying to off me again?" I demanded. Damn it, at least, acknowledge my existence when you're talking about what to do with me.

"We will be your guard dogs" Puck reassured me smiling as if there was something dirty implied by those simple words.  
"We most certainly will not" Will denied finally turning to face us with his eyes glittering in anger, or was it the remainder of tears. I couldn't tell.

"Aww what's the matter Shake-Spear? Don't want to face your rejected lover?" Puck was almost cruel. He must really be pissed about the Midsummer's thing. Dude could seriously hold a grudge.

"No it's not that it's" he trailed off looking away. "Fine I'll go."

"That's my boy" Puck chortled and Will looked at him annoyed.  
Then proceeded a greater flurry and scurrying around than anything you had ever seen, even worse than a valley girl before the winter formal. And let me tell you, those were bad. My mother had decided that I was not being social enough and that thus I had to go to the dance and that I needed to get together with a girlfriend to get ready for it. Small problem, my only girlfriend was Jenna and she disdained the whole process, so consequentially my mother decided that now I had a new best friend in one of her work acquaintances daughters, Mimmy. 

Do not get me started on Mimmy. She was one of those doll girls, not like Chastity who was, or I thought was, a cheerleader type. This girl was so wrapped up in curls and hair and makeup and she was convinced she was going to be a hair stylist because obviously having brains was for losers who didn't end up marrying Mr. Right. Because all good girls ended up with Mr. Right, obviously.

But I digress, the three men were gathering up supplies and stuffing them into cloth bags that strangely enough never seemed to spill over. I know very Hermione Granger right, but it was practical. I didn't even notice when they finished.

Puck grabbed my hand once more – I was really getting sick of him lugging me around like some kind of animated sack of potatoes. And then it was the usual means of transporting between places almost as if this was a story where the narrator couldn't be bothered to write a journey segment because really, those things were fucking boring and thus incredibly difficult to piece out and still have readers.

Except that is not what really happened. What actually happened was that we got tossed out flat in the middle of nowhere – although really it was in the center of a forest, completely not where we were supposed to be I'm sure -with nothing for miles except trees and more trees, and probably some wild beasties too. Oh joy. And when I say tossed out I mean literally falling through whatever warp tunnel we had been traveling along – because I think of teleportation in terms of Star Trek so sue me – and fell flat on our bums, except in my case I tripped coming out and landed completely on my back.

"Dang blasted shield" Will cursed, no really Will cursed, and in contemporary slang too. Oh how the mighty had fallen, it wasn't even if iambic pentameter either.

"What's going on?' it wasn't me this time, who demanded. And yet they were all – except Will who was looking slightly guilty – looking at me accusingly.  
Hey it's not my fault your fancy fairy magic got messed up. It doesn't follow the rules of science and logic, it doesn't follow any rules at all as far as I can tell, so how can it be expected to work perfectly consistently.

"Blasted energy mage" Puck muttered. Though he wasn't looking me in the face with such a comment so I couldn't call him on it. Instead, it was more like he was talking about or to some other energy mage, either that or he was pulling a 'bloody pirates" general statement that Keira Knightley somehow managed to make charming, god only knows how.

"Actually, it wasn't fair lady's fault" a voice from behind one of the trees sounded. "I have a rather powerful barrier up around my living place in order to prevent such sudden intrusions by those who do not mean me well" the voice sounded from the opposite side of the small clearing we were standing in. "And since I do not recognize any of your strange personages, excepting the lovely William who did not part on the best terms with me myself and I" he paused to laugh to himself quietly – for it was an obviously masculine voice despite not being as deep as some – as Will's face became an even redder tinge. "Ahh thou hadst forgot my defenses so soon lovely William?" he taunted. "That may be but I doubt that thy company means well." His tone darkened suddenly from the teasing banter as the winds picked up. I know cliche right? But this was Faerie, and the cliche and trite were normal since, as has been stated before and emphasized many times, all stories are true.


	18. Chapter 18

The voice had been coming from various directions and changing rapidly so that it seemed as if we were surrounded on all sides. I was beginning to get vertigo from swiveling my head around too quickly to track where the voice was coming from.

"Lord Silver we are not - " but a particularly nasty blast of wind cut him off as he had to struggle to remain upright.

A man stepped out of the tree cover as the wind died down and Will moved to open his mouth once more. Well, sort of a man but too fey to be called a true son of Adam with high pointed ears, even more so than Jareth and with almond shaped eyes that, when you squinted, his pupils looked slitted like a cat's. But beyond that he was just too beautiful to be considered a normal mortal man, I could totally see why Will had, and still obviously was, attracted to this being.

He had long silver hair, his namesake obviously, that was held back in a small cue bound with leather. He had a broad chest that only served to accent his slim waist and long legs which were clothed with cloth knee length boots bona fide leggings and a forest green jerkin belted with a strap from which hung a sword a pouch and a small scabbard for a dagger. And he looks pissed – which somehow made him look even more hot, although perhaps I am just twisted. But his eyes were fixed on Will and you could tell that, even though he was angry at the bard, he still held a deep passion for him, borderline between love and lust too if I wasn't mistaken. Hello sir, do you have a dagger in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

"Thou speakest lies. Why else would thou have brought thy newest lover?" he gestured at Marlowe who only looked smug. Oh so that was the level of their relationship was it. How the hell did this guy know of it? He seemed kind of secluded and hermit-like way out here in the boonies. "Thou rejected me most cruel and hast come to throw it in my face to mock me and capture me to imprison me to that usurper's command" he went on to accuse.

Will had lost his blush and now looked a bit irked as well as frustrated. "I do no such thing. We come seeking a boon. Hast thou no conception of mine honor? For the love thou once held for me cannot thou grant this?"

Okay when I said this guy was pissed before, I obviously hadn't seen him now. He was practically smoking at the ears. "Thou darest" he hissed. "Begone with thee before I bring myself to smite thee which, for the love I once held I forebear now."

"King Jareth -" Puck tried to bring his supposedly neutral voice into the argument but only managed to draw Silver's anger to him as well as Will.

"This Jareth is not my king" he snarled. "He took the throne from my thrice crowned uncle and has not the power to interfere in my life or command my obedience."  
Was this guy on Gwendolyn's side then? Just who had Will taken us too?

"He's part of the old court" Kit had sidled up to me and was whispering in my ear " when things were wilder and there was a separate queen for the light as well as the dark, rather than a high king. She was not much better than your Gwendolyn with the whole binding and witchy thing." 

She was hardly my Gwendolyn.

"Please Silver" Will stated simply and, although I could not see his face I could tell he was giving the lone silver fey the eyes.

"Not thine eyes William" Silver stated "I shan't listen" of course at this point he was almost pleading and you could tell that his will was softening.

Will didn't say anything. He didn't need to, just kept gazing at Silver who was twitching uncomfortably.

The fey suddenly seemed that much more well not necessarily human since that would be completely contrary to his nature but at the very least more normal or less otherworldly and above the grain than he had appeared before. Yeah, Will's puppy dog eyes will do that to you as I learned later as he would use them on me for the slightest thing be they using my magic to get the item he wanted off the highest shelf or giving him the last cookie that I had snagged. I guess it was a lesson well learned.

"Fine" Silver grunted out obviously unwilling but forced to by the power of Will's eyes as well as the feelings he still cherished for the brunette playwright. Can I say love triangle anyone? Kit wasn't looking too happy at the turn of events and he was somewhat ostentatious in putting his arms around Will's shoulder but, unfortunate brush off by Will who was not in the mood to be a point of contention between the two. Anyways Silver would have won, and Kit would have lost his good looks in the losing.  
"Now what dost thou want? Silver had brushed off his fleeting emotionality and was back to business, although there was a faint undercurrent of double entendre, just to annoy Kit because that was Silver's new life's goal considering they were rivals for Will's affections.

"Teach her" Puck interjected, jerking his thumb towards me. Silver ignored him completely – which pissed Puck off to high hell, he was not used to being disregarded – focusing on Will's face. Obviously, the request would have to come from his past lover.

"As he says" Will stated solemnly. "The girl needs tutoring. She is a Bridgit" – since when was I a girl again? I was a woman thank you very much, hear me roar and all that.

But despite the misnomer, my status, perhaps it was the whole Bridgit thing, must have meant something as it caused Silver to suck in his breath sharply and dart his eyes in my direction. Finally some attention over here. Yes, there was another individual standing over here watching you have some kind of ex lover's spat. And no it's not as fun as it looks, thanks so much for asking.

He was suddenly in front of me - because it was so completely normal for humanoids to move that fast. No seriously. Teh, this guy obviously had part cat or something. He was peering into my eyes as if searching for something. Then he glanced back over at Puck as if he knew some deep dark secret of his.

"Well isn't this interesting" he spoke directly to said Puck, who only raised his eyebrow in dissent and huffed slightly.

"As you say, it means naught to me" he answered shortly.  
Silver laughed almost mockingly and then, taking my hand he quoted men in tights at me. Oh, he's a smoothy, he's quite a smoothy. I already didn't like him. But if he was going to be my new teacher I had to put on a good front didn't I?   
"Charmed I'm sure."

He gave me an almost evil smirk as if he could tell what I had been thinking and with a wave of his hand he brushed the others off. "All of you can go. Leave this one to me." It seemed he had completely forgotten his obsession with Will although it must have been in the back of his mind. And none of them argued. Damn this guy must have some kind of authority, either that or they were desperate.

And what was the point of this? Training so that I could defend myself against attacks that would just keep coming until that bitch died, because she would never give up and the fey were fucking ageless. Yeah, I was screwed.

But anyways the three manly men who had come with me promising to guard my virtue or something like that – which I wasn't exactly sure what they meant – had all left me standing with this stranger. And apparently this stranger was a complete jerk face. After the first introductions, it was do this do that no hello how are you or it's quite nice weather whatsoever. Not that it was exactly pertinent to the occasion, but still would have been nice.

He was standoffish but despite his front of getting rid of the others – although they didn't go far thank god – it was obvious that I was not his main interest, that was still Will. I say obvious cause I'm such a brilliant reader of characters, but I was also the one who was right up there in his face while my compatriots were off on the outskirts of the small circle Silver had made in the trees for my training. Thus, I had a front seat view of his sighs and glances over his shoulder at where Will was standing, but I suppose he made a good show of being the harsh but brilliant schoolmaster. Borderline Snape-like and all that.

He started me out with a physical fitness regime that I saw absolutely no point in. After all, magic right? What the heck did I need to be ripped for if the energy was more mental and spiritual and had much more to do with brains than brawn. Which I pointed out to him being the young innocent slash idiot that I was and he proceeded to not only lecture me ragged he also assigned a few further minutes of my plank exercise saying it would be good for me to feel the burn of exhaustion before I went on dismissing it as useless. I still do not fully understand that logic but my whole body was killing me in the end and I was not about to argue with the man who had control of whatever amount of pain I was in. And planks are designed by some kind of demon not even Lucifer since a fallen angel couldn't have comprehended such pain, you would have had to be evil from birth. But then again, and wasn't this statement all kinds of trite, if all that is good thinks you're evil, are you? Which should really make me question all of my conceptions of good and evil, but somehow it doesn't in the least. My arms while not pansy little spaghetti strings are certainly not made to hold my entire weight I am woman after all with the whole stereotype about lower body strength cause you know we give birth to the next generation and what the fuck more do you want from us?

This continued for several days of get up at dawn and lay your head down for a brief rest after twilight with Kit and Will looking on from the sidelines sometimes playing cards but otherwise looking bored. Puck had gone off on some business so he was unable to witness my misery. It was on one of our solo hikes that I actually got to witness Silver's human – well as far as emotionality went human – qualities. It was when we had a brief respite by one of the springs that made it seem as if we were in a separate world from the events ravaging the rest of Faerie – because even if we were off in the idyllic countryside as Puck called it, it didn't mean that we were outside of the loop regarding events, especially because Puck was often back and forth carrying messages. The Lost had continued to make attacks against the castle since it seemed Gwendolyn was unaware that I had moved, Puck claimed it was because he was just that good, and there had been various fires and inside attacks that had both Sarah and Jareth exhausted and barely continuing on fumes of some sort.

Back to the spring side though, while I lay panting on the ground where I had dropped – Silver went at a fast pace that basically disregarded the fact that I was a mortal woman who did not have some kind of everlasting store of adrenaline – Silver went up a few paces to sit and stare in the waters like some kind of androgynous Narcissus. Oh god, I hope that doesn't mean I was being cast as Echo. I had caught my breath after a few minutes and was approaching the water to dunk my head under and drown myself. Again. Because honestly, it had to be better than this. When I heard him. It was a soft sobbing which I really didn't expect from a guy, and especially not from this guy. Well, it turns out that this guy was really special slash weird in the fact that he wasn't always a guy. No, wait I'm serious this isn't some trite way to get the plot to carry on through massaging of character natures or whatever. Silver was a bonafide woman now. I suppose I should say Lady Silver but Pavlov and all that. This made so much more sense regarding her relationship with Will – or was it more PC to say him? - though as a sixteenth-century man it must have been so weird for him to be confronted with a lover who could change his or her gender at will. Or at Will – I made a funny there you caught it right? Although really not that funny considering how traumatized Will must have been that his dark lady – cause Lady Silver was obviously the other option from his fair youth – was both one and the same both man and woman, and I don't really think an early Will was that kinky. Now however I wasn't sure considering he was embroiled with Kit.

She looked up at me through long lashes and for a moment I forgot that she was supposed to be a he and was green with envy. My lashes were too stubby to be able to look up through them like that. But then she gave a short laugh. "So now you know my deepest secret" and apparently when she turned girl she also lost the annoying Shakespearean jargon that I just knew was a front. "What shall you do with the knowledge I wonder." Is that what she thought of me then. I hadn't been that much of a bitch I hoped.

I sat down next to her and began tossing pebbles in the water, all thoughts of a death by drowning forgotten. "I suppose it begs the question. What do you want me to do with it?" I answered. See I could have the same kind of hoity-toity language if I wanted.

We stared at the water for a while then she pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper from her pocket – she was still wearing the doublet and breeches of her other self, now they just had curves which I wish I had even the barest hint of. I recognized the handwriting it was the same as the one as the scribbled on parchment in Will and Kit's room and for a moment I was afraid I was about to be caught in a love triangle between Will, Kit, and Silver – although wouldn't it be more like a love square considering the dual personalities of Silver? "It's nothing like that" she assured me knowingly, "it was his goodbye and now I am lost for I forsook my king and country for William. Brave William. I am cast out and cannot find myself able to go and seek acceptance from the new monarchs." Ahh, that was the catch. "And now you have come and brought the new monarch's problems to me" and she was back with the confrontational bit. "Magic" she bit out " I am supposed to teach you magic. Would that I had your power and was able to cast a spell to make William come back to me. But I could not do that even if I did, for it would be a false love." She was crying again, great tears trickling down her cheeks and wasn't that uncomfortable.

"So will you do it without the whole beating my body to bits with training?" yeah I don't really fall for the whole hysteric thing. No empathy whatsoever as I think if you're going to cry do it in privacy but when in public, well crying doesn't really get you anywhere except with idiot males who have glorified ideas of chivalry and male honor and in case you didn't notice? I was female.

After a few minutes she peeked up at me through the fingers that she had over her face, "well aren't you a hard one?" she withdrew her hands and lo and behold her face was completely dry, "I suppose I'd better get on with it then" she stood up brushing off her breeches. "The first thing you must know about magic -" she started all business-like as if I had not just witnessed her wiles in dissolving in tears and then completely hysteria-free. She was one of those who gave woman a bad name, although I admired her ability to do so. If I had been a male or even less skeptical, I totally would have fallen for it too.

Then we actually got down to business with the teaching. It was heavily complicated with all the intricate ins and outs of magical theory. We started with my core which she admitted was much stronger than normal but it had no defenses and was pretty much open to anyone to get in drain me dry and depart with no consequences which she demonstrated me many times because she went for the practical learn how to defend or die route. Of course, I didn't actually experience death, again, since she stopped inches short of the final line. But I could have.

I didn't know how long it took Kit and Will stayed there the whole time as if they didn't have anything better to do, but it turns out Silver had used her own magic to split the time scheme. For me, training would last for weeks, for them bare minutes. Really I think it was only for her to get the ability to gaze at Will without impediment for days on end. Every so often she would go male on me and would go off to do his -her?- own thing for a while. When she came back female we actually came to an understanding where she would tell me what I needed to know and I wouldn't ask uncomfortable questions. Before I fully understood this compromise, though, I did get one extraneous tidbit out of her. She told me that at times if she waited too long without switching back and forth between sexes her body would decide that it was time and do it for her and she would be stuck in whatever one it decided on for a few hours. This was after I asked her and she had blushed tomato. I guess it made sense with the whole not telling Will and then Will inevitably finding out thing. And despite his, her, brashness, I liked her. She had the same kind of dark humor and scathing comments that I found in a lot of my friends back home. I still missed home dreadfully but I was beginning to accept that there wasn't anything I could do about it and that my friends would be safer there without me. Or so I presumed.

I'm not sure but I think I expected that she would come with me regardless of how complicated that would make things, that is why it surprised me so that one day when we had finished my training and the short exercise regime that I had finally come to terms with and gotten used to seeing the benefit in physical as well as mental strengthening, she pushed me towards my poor time manipulated companions.

"Go. You are done here." With that, she just disappeared as if she had never been and Kit and Will finally approached. Will was still watching where she had been moments ago and there was something in his eyes that made me think he missed her and that there parting had been more for propriety and because he was too wrapped up by his society's understanding of normal to allow the idea of what she was. But he missed the person, regardless of which sex she was. I guess that was what allowed him to so easily accept his feelings for Kit? Or maybe it was just because Kit basically makes you like him will you or nil.

"That was short" was Kit's blithe comment. Willfully ignoring the atmosphere and pushing for a more happy feeling on Will and I. To no avail.

It was with this kind of depressed air dampening our spirits that Puck arrived from his flurry of business activities exhausted and with his defenses tied to a tight string that was almost to the breaking point. I was debating what to do meanwhile if Puck did not arrive soon. We all were hungry and while Silver had provided food for me whilst I was under her care. Now she was gone and I got the feeling it wasn't just gone in the sense that she was just beyond the next tree watching us, but rather gone from this area if not this plane of existence and had no intention of returning. It was in the way the leaves were just a bit grayer and the air just a bit cooler. Regardless there was no food and although Silver had taught me extensively on mental defenses and power attacks there was very little of the practical nature of transportation and conjuring food. So we were somewhat stuck and I was highly leery of winging it. Too many horror possibilities and to take a note out of Harry Potter, splinching. Either way, these were not good options and I was cursing Puck while taking out some of my frustration by throwing a magical windstorm around. Useless but, at least, it was a way to tame my anger. Because I was inordinately angry at the situation and it had all kind of been bottled up while training. Too tired to even think about the rest of the world.

Anyways Puck happened to pop into existence right in the midst of when of my, well to put it subtly one of my expressions. And unfortunate for him he did not take the surprise well which was odd and he must have been really stressed since usually such random weirdness delighted him and he was able to flow with the times in a way that usually annoyed the rest of the world. But, to put it bluntly, he freaked. He did one of those random acts of magic that proved just how powerful a being was hiding behind the angsty emo fey teen facade. Something that we all seemed to forget.

He didn't pull out a wand or any such flourish with his hands – Silver had assured me that wands were for dweebs and douchebags, much to my amusement. No, his was an everyday chant and with an odd flick, I suddenly found a fireball coming straight at me. No time for any of that fancy spell work which I had just been taught – which obviously was not natural to me despite the intensive training – I did a totally plebeian dodge and roll. Kit told me later that while that looked cool it would have much more impressive if I had been able to cast a counter spell while rolling. I told him he could basically stuff it until he could do the same. I think he was somewhat insulted at my implied denigration of his skill with a sword, which was impressive even without fancy magic, not that I would tell him that.  
Fortunately, the first fire ball was not followed by a second as Puck seemed to regain his equilibrium.

'Lovely morning " he commented briskly as he straightened himself. His eyes were still darting around for a threat Still bloodshot tired and he was about to fall off his feet. I didn't know the fey could get tired from overwork, weren't they supposed to be able to live forever as long as the human race remembered – or was it believed – in them. And Will had certainly ensured that Puck would be remembered forever so I don't know why Puck always protested his presence in the plays I guess it must have something to do with how his presence is remembered since the way the fey are depicted in such stories often times influences their identity down under. Puck seemed to be resisting that fairly well, though, after all, he was not some naked sprite with glinting eyes and small horn stubs atop his head he must be moving with the times since a punk teen was so much more mischievous and apt to cause trouble nowadays.

"I have news" Puck started up self-importantly. Only to be interrupted by Kit

"You have news you say? He has news Will will wonders never cease. Cause it's not like we have not been stuck here for days on end!" of course he had only been there for hours I was the one who had gone through several weeks in Silver's presence.

Will it appears was not any more pleased that Kit to be stuck out in the veritable boonies but he seemed a bit calmer about the prospect of release, placing a calming hand on Kit's shoulder – which made Kit start since it had come from the side with his patched eye despite his claims of being able to sense things regardless of not being able to see them – he looked placidly down at the young fey teen. Though really Puck was older than all of us put together despite his first presence in Will's Midsummer play his eyes were far older and he had seen many such dynastic battles for power for love and for revenge because even the fey could feel such desires and emotions no matter what popular culture denigrated them as. No Puck while not quite as ancient and powerful as say Oberon or even Jareth, was not someone to snub your nose at no matter how irksome his behavior could be it was possible for him to be deathly serious sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.

But Will was speaking and far be it from me to snub the words that come from the mouth of such a respected poet and playwright, even if most of his words had been written rather than spoken by him.


	19. Chapter 19

"Yes, we must return to our residence. I have a play in the works locked up safe within my mind. Something about a statue and a lost princess. Maybe a bear mauling or two" he trailed off into his artist's trance mentally picturing a wide stage with a separation between the locus and the plateau and small puppets traipsing around with words running over their heads. He had become much more serious from the laughing brunette who teased and poked back at Kit when I first met him back in central Faerie closer and tight faced with a kind of sadness hidden in the depths of his eyes. Silver had done that and I could see that he, or was it she, had caused the deep mourning. Or rather Will had caused it in his rejection of her but he must have regretted it in some part of his subconscious heart which she, or he, only blamed him in a light manner as the fey while holding emotions, don't really take the fickleness of human emotions seriously he was a lost plaything who she had dearly loved – yes I am sticking with she - it's too much trouble otherwise – but knew she would have lost in the end. The turning of the knife was that now that Will was here in Faerie she would not have lost him anyways but now their feelings were set too deep and for her, it was very difficult to change set emotions only repeat and emphasize the ones she held before. Will, on the other hand, was obviously feeling the guilt once more and they were shifting into a kind of nostalgic regret which still pricked him and which he was hiding his suffering through retreating into his playwriting.

Kit obviously understood as he must have had lost loves and affairs gone wrong in his life too. You could see it in his eyes and the way he looked at Will not only with understanding as well as his own pain. He was dealing with his emotions in his own jocular way and wasn't this a sappy moment that so easily excluded me from the solidarity.

"Something about a bear chase and weather " Will continued mumbling to himself his hand moving as if he was scribbling something. It wasn't a conscious movement he wasn't showing off to us but he was seriously lost in his own depiction of a play. And this was not perturbing Puck in the slightest so it must have been an everyday kind of thing as he kept pulling things out of his knapsack without pause or comment.

"I know I put it in here somewhere" he muttered into the depths of his bag sticking his hand in deep. So deep that his shoulder went all the way into the bag and it looked as if it should have gone through the bottom of the bag very much like that of Mary Poppins except without the comic quality of that governess.

"Ah ha I have found it!" he pulled an odd object out of his bag and displayed it. Much like I am sure Columbus would have liked to do to the Catholic Kings but I am sure it would have been an epic failure in that situation, however, it was with a very similar feeling to his statement of discovery. The object he showed us was not all that much. Not quite the magnificent thing that he was looking at it as. With the way, he was gazing at it as if it was an impressive feat I was expecting something at the very least shiny.

It was a shoe, no I'm not kidding a bona fide old boot with half the laces chewed off and a hole in the toe. And this was Puck's treasure? I would question his sanity but we already knew him as partially out of the loop.

"It's a shoe" I pointed out to him just in case he had missed the fact. Kit came up from behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"But what kind of shoe is it Master Robin?" he asked snarkily obviously still irked at the whole situation if he was going formal on Puck.

Puck only scowled at the two of us and twisted the shoe in his hand grabbing my elbow – Kit grabbed Will's arm else Puck would have left him behind without a thought – the shoe glowed green, an oddly sickly color against the mottled brown of the leather but still not the greasy feel of dark Unseelie magic that I had felt while with Gwendolyn, it had practically radiated off of her. With a snap, we were travelling once more back towards central Faerie. I hate this kind of travel, have I mentioned? So much like a sucking sensation and as if you're pulled between places and then the disorientation of finding yourself in a place that you were not mere seconds before and with limited knowledge of whether or not some evil thing would be waiting for you.

Which of course considering my luck, they were.  
It wasn't a Lost, this time, instead, it was three figures dressed up in the shape of mortal authority figures surrounding us. But they were not actual mortals, their movements were too jerky and there eyes too empty. Nor were they the other option that everyone is obsessed with nowadays, they weren't zombies – and can't you just hear the sighs of disappointment in the background. IF anything they were worse. Zombies are stupid, mindless dead bodies whose only goal is blood and flesh so they are easy to distract. These were golems, better than the Lost in that it was just as easy to hurt them as if they were human, minor problem while they were directed by the mind of another – which was a problem in itself – the bodies were still alive and feeling, as the natural inhabitants soul – although that sounds so trite – was aware of what was going on. So not only did you have to take care not to kill them, but you also had to make sure that you didn't reveal too much about magic and Faerie. Else start another witch hunt that would definitely be more effective in this modern age.

And I know what you're thinking, does this girl never get any rest? Well, the answer is no. Not really not until the day I die which I'm sure Gwendolyn would love if that were today. But now, finally, I could step out of the role of the helpless damsel in distress. I know I had flumped in my response to Puck's accidental attack, but here at least I could take the first move as the golems did not immediately attack. What were they waiting for anyways? Was I suppose to scream and faint at their presence or something? Ha, fat chance that. Kit and Will had already drawn steel but it was something of a useless response as these bodysuits had their own ammunition, and swords did very little against guns. You watch any western movie and you would know. Puck was also rather useless. These guys had to have had iron on them as Puck was practically leaning on me looking drawn and clutching his wrists. I still had yet to interrogate him about that. Okay so two men still wrapped up with the fighting of the seventeenth century and a fey with a rather debilitating weakness, and these were supposed to be bodyguards? I guess it was all on me.

I curled it around me, the power as I stared into the three figures blank faces letting it rub against my sides like some kind of overgrown cat. Flaring out at odd moments since I still did not have the perfect sphere that I had seen Sarah and Jareth down, but hey I was still a newbie at this stuff. Now, what would be the most effective against a golem with a human stuck outside? I couldn't use my favourite water technique – yeah I know ironic considering I had drowned, perhaps something inside me was a bit of a sadist or was that self-harm or promoting harm? I can never get those straight, well whatever, the soul inside the body did not deserve to have to deal with my messed up mind. I knew most of the element spells and was relatively good with them – Silver would have argued against that statement saying that almost burning the fucking forest down did not qualify as relatively good with the fire element at least, though she would admit a level of talent with water, all from her teaching of course not because of any ability of mine. But regardless I couldn't use any of them considering I did not want to damage the golems physical bodies. Just knock 'em around a bit so that they were no longer a threat. Easy right?

No, not so easy. I had a very limited repertoire of spells to work with. Silver had told me I would learn by experience, imitation, and innovation. Basically, she told me I could do anything I wanted with the level of power I held, I only needed to focus my intent. Sure and just how was I supposed to do that? Well, there were always status spells, those could work as long as I stayed away from the more poisonous ones. But seriously? Even in Pokemon status effects were not that effective and I could not claim to have a mean left hook to finish them off.  
I threw a couple of sleep and confundus spells at them but only managed to drop the woman police officer, guess the other ones were too ingrained with caffeine residue for it to work and they just shook it off. The sleep on the female didn't even manage to last that long as she shook it off in a few moments. Damn, this was doing a number on my ego.

"Just waste them and be done with it" Puck snapped at me – although it wasn't as loud or abrasive as it normally would have been considering his strength had been drained exponentially.

"No they're still alive" I argued back throwing another confundus at the trio, who still were not moving as if waiting for something bigger and better – all in all, that was probably the creepier part.

"Damn it Bridgit quit being such a pansy ass, they're just humans, they die off in hordes every day anyways" he was obviously struggling through an intense weakness.

But that didn't stop me from setting my chin and glaring over my shoulder at him. "Humans like me?"

"Must we have this kind of philosophical debate now?" Will queried politely.

Just then the lead golem, a Scotland Yard agent of all things, finally moved not in any dramatic way like pulling out some kind of arquebus or big weaponry, not even a small cricket like gun with obvious fire power, no instead he pulled out a metal rod. And I'm looking at him like he's crazy because what the hell is he going to do with that, beat us? - you know that whole thing about speaking softly and carrying a big stick (obviously compensating for something ) was totally screwed up – when Kit just dropped alongside Puck. Oh. Iron. Shit.

I guess Kit was susceptible to iron too from living here so long, even longer than Will by a good forty years I guess. Which really shouldn't have been that much of a difference but Will was still standing. Their magic was different, I could tell that by looking at them now. Will used the magic of his plays, of words and language to shore up the power of the faerie hill, the power base of all that resided here Underground, whereas Kit relied on said magic, the magic of the physical – no not lamia physical, but beyond just ideas and beliefs – for his power, and a lot of it was steeped in old fey tradition. Puck, well Puck was fey and that explained the simplest of reasons. That rod had to be pure iron and it was practically resonating, there must have been some black magic there. Human magic because, despite popular belief and the corruptive nature of the whole Harry Potter frenzy, human's did have magic. Look at me. But normally it was locked pretty tight inside our minds, and only the rare few – didn't that make me feel all special and tingly inside – were able to access it and unfortunately those few often went dark and inclined towards necromancy whether out of greed or a desire to revert time and regain those who had gone before them. On the next great adventure - with the hype surrounding it I kind of have to wonder why we bothered.

So two down two to go. Though Will was mostly back up and support, not much use now as his art was more of a precursor kind of thing not a do or die in the midst of raging battle type that one.

Le sigh. Guess I might actually have to do some damage which I am sure I will feel desperately guilty about later but now these three were pissing me off. Sure I had morals and a conscious and all that, and I certainly wasn't going to kill them, just put a little fire under their bums, hopefully, these were lesser golems not directly under the command of Gwendolyn but a minion. It was a gamble that I was quite willing to up the stakes on. After all, what other choice did I have? Though these golems had not actually made a direct attack against me, too much exposure to iron was poison and would eventually kill first Puck then Kit. And with very little to stand in their way my end would soon follow because I would either die in a noble defense of my comrades – likely right especially due to the golems attacks – or die once captured and sacrificed. It was all very gloom and doom from this vantage point, so why not do something about it?

"Come quietly and your comrades shall get a quick death" one of the golems didn't so much speak but a voice emitted from its mouth area. Yeah, cause I really believed that kind of bargaining, but it was somewhat flattering that my attacks were meriting such a response, and here I was thinking they had been relatively useless.

"There is a limit on how much power can be placed in golems" Will muttered in my ear as he straightened from checking Kit's pulse. "Whoever holds them in bondage cannot hold them forever. Stall."

That sounded like an excellent plan besides the fact that the longer the golems remained, and especially the longer the iron rod remained, the longer Kit and Puck had to suffer iron poisoning and it wasn't just a one dose kind of thing, they were getting continuous poison from the blasted thing and the sooner they were away from it the better. So back to the original plan.  
It made me all warm and cuddly inside that Will was willing to suggest such a plan though he obviously must have known the consequences

So fire and gunpowder. This brings things to a close, a glorious end that shall never be forgot. Fire and brimstone flew through the air. Here I could let loose, no fear of forest fires erupting around us, in fact, it would probably be to my benefit if things were set alight. Perhaps to draw attention and to scare the golems off. They were the intelligent type of minion, not like the Lost who would have let themselves burn and would have felt nothing, these minions knew that to burn was to die and become useless to whatever overriding will there was behind them. Even the most desperate to regain their free will would not have braved the fire. They were supposed to move, to flee the fire.

They didn't instead the golem that was not holding the iron bar in front of him pulled out another item - wondering why they didn't just get all of these things out before at the start of the confrontation – the minds inside the bodies must be fighting the intent if it took them that long to pull out things that would do serious damage to any opposition they found. Because, while the items didn't physically attack us, Kit and Puck were out and now I was useless, I didn't know what it was at the time but I found myself unable to access my power it was like there was a physical block between me and it, and it felt like there was a heavyweight wrestler sitting on my chest. Not as in crushing me physically but as if there was something blocking my access to air, to energy. I never knew my magic could be so vital. Heck, I never even knew I had magic before recently.

There was none of the dramatic darkening of the room and thunder rumbling that one came to expect with feelings of approaching doom. Instead, the lighting remained the same and there was no weird transition in the room temperature – which would have been very strange considering we were no longer exposed to the elements. There was, however, a strange buzzing and muffled nature to the ambience of the room – oh yeah that would be because my oxygen supply felt like it was being cut off – Pavlov and all that, I wasn't really being suffocated, I just thought I was which was worse, I think.

Time seemed to slow since my limbs felt oh so heavy and lethargic – you know that time standing still and everyone shouting no in extended vowel sounds kind of time stoppage, except we were all too – not quite tired, but energyless like when you skip meals too many times in a row – to actually even think about making such an effort as speaking. The beings approached unhindered, and as the iron approached I even found myself unable to move stone like – I guess I was more similar to the fey magic type than I had thought or else the dark magic involved was even more potent than it looked. I found myself staring at the planks of the floor, none of that blacking out and fainting to black like you hear in the detective stories that you buy in the grocery store that is practically labelled I am a crappy book please buy me so that the store clerk can claim that she managed to make you completely waste your money and then laugh at you and hurt you for you are the prince's jester. No none of that I was still completely lucid and saw all that occurred but I was trapped behind my eyes much like the spirits within the golems were contained within their bodies. It was very scary and depressing.  
I must have fallen or had my legs go weak considering I was looking at the floor's grains of wood, but oh so sleepy and my brain was going fuzzy. The last thing I felt someone – a golem most likely, male with his muscles – pull me up and sling me over his shoulder like some kind of organic bag of potatoes – lovely no manners whatsoever the lout. And it didn't so much go dark as it faded out to the smell of unwashed hair. This guy must have not bathed for weeks for the scent to be that strong, and I got a good whiff of it since he also never seemed to go the barber, this is me getting a lock of it shoved into my mouth, so much the grossness, I was brushing my teeth three or four times once I got back to having access to toothpaste. Which reminds me just what kind of modern facilities did they have in Faerie? Running water? Plumbing? Somebody, please tell me we had plumbing else why the hell did they all stay below ground when faced with the beauties of modern technology. I understood roughing it when I was out with Silver getting my training in the middle of a forest. Heck, I actually liked camping in small amounts, as long as I had bug spray and access to actual toilets, none of this hole in the ground camping potty drivel for me thank you very much. But it had to be in very small amounts for limited periods of time. Right now I was actively craving a hot bubble bath. Especially with the crick in my neck and the cold in my bones from sleeping at an uncomfortable angle on the stone floor. Wait stone floor? I snapped to attention. It seemed I was locked away in an underground dungeon that had the same creepy disturbing feeling of the last time Gwendolyn had caught me. Oh. Crap. Back to square one with little likelihood that a small fellow would be around to play prince charming. I could see Kit and Will in the furthest corner, still asleep and heads tilted onto each other as if merely resting against the trunk of an apple tree. Why did they get positioned in at least a somewhat comfortable pose, whereas I had been thrown willy-nilly on the dungeon floor? Puck at least seemed to share my misery he was curled up in a ball and seemed to be muttering to himself. Well, he was the only one out of the four of us with the most experience with these kind of situations. I crawled over to him – still feeling too weak to manage standing, besides the ceilings were rather low. When I got closer I saw that he was attached to the dungeon wall by a short chain, fortunately not iron and was rubbing his wrists again, whimpering. - Yeah, he was going to be a lot of help in our present situation if he was still wrapped up in whatever had happened to him before. I leaned my back up against the wall next to him, even that short distance and such little effort had done a number on me. It was looking like a suave jail breakout was not as likely as I thought considering how flimsy the bars looked. I should have learned by now that not everything is as it appears at first glance. I nudged Puck with my boot. No sympathy on this end, if he wanted to have some kind of complex he could have it on his own time. Yeah, I was all about the flowers and puppies – poops and giggles to that nonsense.


	20. Chapter 20

I nudged him again when he didn't move, only continued whimpering.  
"Snap out of it" I finally whispered to him. Not sure why I didn't want anything or anyone to hear – even if I didn't see any guards to speak of I was wary. I had to lean close to him in order for him to be even likely to hear me. His hand snatched out and grabbed my wrist at a speed surprising in how much it contrasted with how weak he must have been from the iron. His sleeve fell completely down, it had ripped on the journey down here I expect, and it bared the scars around his own wrist completely. They were no longer the white lines of old injuries that would probably never fade completely but now were blazing red and raw as if they had just been created. I didn't think there had been enough time while I was out for him to be tortured, so something must have re-opened the old wounds.

He pulled me down so that I was looking straight into his eyes. They were wide open and bloodshot, yet his pupils looked more like that of a cat's than ever.  
"Be careful" he practically hissed at me. Lips drawn back over his teeth into a kind of snarl – not at me but at the situation in general – I could practically see his fangs.

"What is going on?" I hissed slash demanded back at him. He retreated back into himself, eyes going dim as he remembered.

"They took me from my rooms, promised me things, whispered promises that never came to be." His words were disjointed. "Betrayal and fire, open the gates and tell all I know. The pain such pain. The iron burns" he was rubbing his wrists again as he started to resemble Frodo's Gollum in his speech pattern. I see a regular Benedict Arnold are we? I was just beginning to pull away in disgust when he pulled himself up and grasped my shoulders, "No more, never. I shan't tarry with the forces of darkness against my lady Sarah, for I love - " he cut himself off and seemed to be chewing his words.

Just at that prime moment Kit and Will chose to awake and with a huge yawn they were completely lucid once more. I hate that type of people, can come awake instantly without even a desire for the joys of caffeinated liquids such as the divine coffee.  
"What's the good word?" Will joked standing and pulling Kit up from beside him. He caught Kit's weight as Kit stumbled, still weak from the residue of iron poisoning. It was interesting to see how they relied on each other and seemed to switch off on who would appear the more vocal and stronger individual as the other weakened. They must have been together for quite a while in order to reach that degree of comfort.

I glared at his overly chipper face as Puck continued to huddle behind me.  
"Oh. That" Will muttered as he peered curiously at Puck and then seemed to draw back in understanding and a level of pity that I had yet to see on his face. He must have been there at the same time as Puck and while he couldn't have experienced the same things – since somehow I doubted Will even could play the betrayer despite some of his plays – he must have seen the effects of Puck's acts. There was a clang at the end of the hall past our cell and we all straightened up and cocked our ears. Becoming silent once more. Silence, except for soft foot pads and exhaled breath. My hearing must have become even better than I thought – not that I really knew how it had come so – if I was able to hear even that. Whoever, or whatever it was must not have wanted to be here. But was it that it didn't want us to hear, or did it not want someone else to hear it I wonder.

Stomp shuffle, creak. The door down the hall was opening. We had all turned our heads to face the door to our cells by now. Expectant and awaiting the decision of our fate. Would we be killed here or taken elsewhere? There were no other options and we were too far below for any hope of rescue. Somehow I knew this with a certainty. The doors seemed to swing open even slower than they normally should have.

An incredibly familiar - yet completely outside of the normal for it to be here – face peeked around the corner of the door. Although peeked seems so effeminate. It was more like peered around furtively.

"Boo," the figure said seriously. He wore a black mask that reminded me of Zorro's but it was obvious who it was. It shouldn't have been since I didn't know what the hell he thought he was doing down here.  
"Diron ap Morgan" what brings you to these dark depths?" Puck asked complacently a level of suspicion and past pain still reminiscent in his voice. It was almost as if he was resigned to his presence whereas I was still in mild shock and annoyance that he had managed to hide the fact that he was able to get down into Faerie from me. Maybe it would have paid to confide in him the fact that I was seeing things, though he had never given any sign of knowing what I could have been talking about. No magic about him whatsoever. At least not then. His eyes had not been the vibrant green that they were now and somehow he had looked less, well, hot. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him in when I saw him in what I thought of as just that morning. A black shirt with a sarcastic writing on the wall-type message that previously had hung from him and looked like it had been pulled from the dirty clothes hamper that morning because of a lack of clean laundry. Now, well now he filled it out nicely and no I cannot believe I am commenting on this – but it was a noticeable difference just like the way the confused manner of his face had formed into a nicely defined, if pointed, chin and his cheekbones, while not as prominent as Jareth's were still rather obvious. He looked dare I say regal, which was not a look I was used to on him.

"It's just Dylan, Robin" he snarled Puck's true name in his face as if it was some type of comeback. "There is no Diron" he stated in a definite manner as if it was not possible for him to hold such a name. Heck, I didn't think it was possible before but now I was beginning to see that there were hidden depths to my erstwhile friend that I knew nothing about. And it made me furious.

I completely ignored the dynamics of tension between Dylan or was it Diron now? I was fully okay with ignoring his dismissal of the name. I wasn't even sure which one was his true name. And why Puck was glaring at him so hatefully although the way Dylan – yes I had decided he was going to keep his “human” multiple personality name – did that mean I was influencing his sense of identity too? As I was saying the way Dylan had almost purred out the first words I had heard him speak so far with a kind of dark chocolate undertone had sent shivers up my spine. I had never heard that particular tone from him behaviour, though I am relatively sure that if he had used it up above back in London he would have had more girls, and boys, flocking to his side in instants? Even me with my limited – okay nonexistent – sexual experience felt something, and I had known what the earlier Dylan had been like. Heck, I had known him with braces or at least I thought I had. If he could put on such a strong glamour that even my warped vision couldn't tell that it was there I started to question the things I had known previously.

Kit and Will had looked confused at his presence previous to hearing his name but now they were tensed on the offensive and watching him closely. Strange rescues must have happened every day in their books, but the name meant something to them. What did they know I wonder.

Regardless I was pissed and at this point, I was not afraid to show it.  
"Dylan?" I called in that oh so sweet tone that most of my close friends know too pale and make a quick exit at. I had thought Dylan knew this already but he managed to remain standing where he was though I did see him flinch and when he turned to face me his eyes were a bit wider and seemed to dart around more. I was hardly in a frame of mind to care, though.  
I stalked towards him not yet at the point where I would grasp for my power. I was pissed but I did not want to actually hurt him. Permanently that would come later. No, right now he was just asking for a good lecture and a few catty moments. So I bitch slapped him and pulling him down by his shirt, which admittedly had less loose folds to grab on to now – and yes I could appreciate this at the same time I was ripping into him – I pulled him down to my level. He must have gained a few inches since before he was closer to my height.  
"What the fuck are you doing her Dylan?"

During the pause where I waited for him to speak I noticed that my three compatriots had a somewhat shocked and fearful look to themselves at the same time both Kit and Will's hands were at their sword hilts and Puck looked about to cast. What? It was just Dylan. I railed at him daily. Just how important was it that he was also Diron ap Morgon? Did this mean something? I hate being the only one out of the loop, especially when it had to do with the guy I thought of as my best male friend. Something of my cluelessness must have shown up on my face as Puck took pity – or was it vengeance on Dylan – on me and state.

"That's the Dark Prince, the son of Jareth's half brother Morgon" somehow I noticed that dark prince was more of a title with capital letters an adjective. Ok, now I was also curious since when did Dylan have enough free time to actually make such a name for himself, and as far as I knew his relatively boring middle-class job at the diner down the street family did not have anyone named Morgan.  
I still held Dylan's shirt in my grip and I watched his response to this claim. He didn't look shocked or negating at the words that Puck spouted off so easily. Instead, he looked annoyed and a little stubborn. "It's just Dylan" he practically growled.

"And again, what the fuck are you doing here Dylan" I focused his attention back on me. I really didn't need two of the now four males at each other's throats. We were in enough trouble as it was without homicide being added into the mix. Besides, I might need one of them to supposedly help get us all out. Once I decided which ones I didn't need though it was fair game as far as these individuals were concerned.

There was a shout from down the hall a clang and footsteps followed dude this dungeon was so archaic seriously you would think with the whole forces of evil being digitized and in charge of the whole computer age that they would have more up to date prisons. Something like virus walls that our digitized bodies couldn't get through or the like. - Yes, and wasn't it obvious that I had no clue what I was talking about so sue me I was a history student none of that technology and economics crap for me. Vellum books and parchment were my heart's surcease.

"Damn it they must have found the bodies" Dylan swore to himself. Wait Dylan swore! This guy usually used far more radical expressions than just the everyday damn or shit, it had always been fun to listen to come up with a new expletive for each occasion, now it seemed he had gone conservative on us, or maybe the occasion was just more serious? He pulled his shirt out of my distracted fingers without any specific notice. Straightening it as if I had done serious damage to the material. It was a fucking band tee just how much of an impact could I have had on it besides wrinkling it temporarily.

"We need to move. Now is not the time for this kind of discussion." He brushed me off me who had seen him as a pubescent teen with a still developing but not quite there yet fashion sense. The good times and the bad and he was ignoring me as if I was insignificant. Sure I totally did not want the attention that my name and apparently my identity merited down here. I didn't want the kind of attention based on a name and a title. But we were best friends we told each other everything. Shouldn't he have seemed I don't know a bit more relieved that I was okay considering the concern and seriousness he had shown earlier that – I still thought of it as the same day? Now he was acting all holier than thou I'm so stuck up because I am apparently royalty no matter how much I denied it the breeding and the attitude was still there. I am sorry but his tiny little bug with its Bowie music did not a white horse and a knight in shining armor make and so his uppityness had no excuse whatsoever. He was acting all prince jerkface-y and it was annoying because that was the kind of guy we usually sat around and mocked together. It made me feel kind of lost. Where did I stand now if the whole arena of his behaviour was shifting?

"No now is the perfect time for such a discussion" Puck had not made the slightest effort to move. Remaining sitting no longer curled up now as such a show of weakness could not be allowed in the presence of, while not a stranger, but a possible opponent – for what I wonder. It was almost as if he relaxed further, leaning back slightly in a position of apathy and crossing his arms over his chest. "After all, it could be a trap you are leading us into young princeling" – oh because Puck was so superior to be able to notice such things.

Dylan gritted his teeth which I could see because I still had the close-up view while not having his face right in front of mine the muscles of his jaw tensed in a manner that I had seen before when he was thinking about something he was passionate about and that angered him. His face was still familiar no matter what kind of behaviour he was enacting at the moment. It wasn't like the dramatic shifts in personality that I had experienced when I knew him before, this was like a completely different person. True personality shifts are supposed to have that effect but at least in his previous attitude towards me they had not completely done a number on my sense of self-confidence. Because really I had issues on that matter and Dylan knew that and was careful not to damage me further. Comes from one of those late night requests to come over to his house at midnight and crawl up his trellis a la Romeo for a tear fest. His words not mine. All that you should be doing more or you are worthless arguments where my mother basically talked at me. Now it was like that kind of discussion had never happened or like he had completely forgotten our friendship from earlier. Prince Jerkface indeed.  
"Just because my father -" Dylan started but stopped because Puck had made a shut up cutting motion with his hand.

"Hide, " he said simply. And suddenly Dylan wasn't standing in front of me or at the very least I couldn't see him and I had not felt something like one of those cloaks Rowling is fixated on swirl past me. N, it was blink and goodbye Dylan. I wish I could have done that kind of thing when I was confronted with one of Chastity's cheerleading hordes who were suggesting "oh my gosh Bridgit you've just got to come shopping and do a makeover with us and oh look cute boy" in those actual words although really it was not meant to be a gesture of friendship on their part but more like a swarm attack and an excuse for mockery, Jenna was one of the rare individuals who was able to pull me out. I think she scared them or something.

He must have had quite a glamour in his repertoire to be able to confidently cast it in the middle of Gwendolyn's stronghold without fear of detection either from her or from the guards. Jerkface.

Finally, I heard hurried footsteps approaching. I was always the last one to notice these things as it was obvious that Kit and Will had noticed it earlier. They were now pretending to still be unconscious. And I was forced back on the ground by a hand that I could not see with a voice near my ear hissing. "Shut up." Oh so now he noticed my existence.

We all remained still as a pair of butt ugly ogre guards shuffled up to the gap of our door and peered in. No one moved until several minutes after the two had gone.

"This has nothing to do with your father lad" Puck stated bluntly "and everything to do with me not liking just how opportune your presence is."

"No?" Dylan stated sarcastically "'cause your other options are looking so promising."  
"The boy has a point" Kit stated, rising and helping Will up.


	21. Chapter 21

"I don't like it" Puck stated obviously, pushing himself up but obviously still weak from the iron. He was forcing himself to appear strong. "Just how do you plan to get us out of here then?"  
Dylan did not answer him moving towards the door and chanting something softly. The door glowed and when he pushed it open I saw that it led not towards the outside of our small cell like it had before but to some place else. Not a lighter place that I recognized but rather to a dim cavern. "Away from here to a transition point" he muttered focusing on keeping the magic alive. Because it was obviously magic and his own power holding the portal. "Now off you trot."  
He shoved me through cause chivalry is so obviously dead. It was like he didn't want me there anymore or something. Kit, Will, and Puck trotted through soon after but I notice they were not shoved at all. Most likely because Dylan knew that those three held long pointy objects, but still.

Dylan did not follow. The guy was acting like a complete snob which I emphatically did not approve of, but I would still worry about him.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. "He's not coming" Will stated quietly. What? Why the hell not" Cause a dungeon was so not a good waiting room for some kind of glorified dentist. He couldn't stay there. It wasn't safe what with the guards on high alert now, and I didn't think he had enough magic juice left to power a continuous invisibility glamour. He had dropped it rather quickly after the guards had gone after all.  
Puck was looking almost approving at this. As if it was some kind of noble thing that he actually respected, which was usually far and few between.  
"He has to close the portal" Will explained.

"But why?" I demanded to the area at large. Why stay behind?

"He said to tell you he was sorry" Kit muttered distractedly looking around the cavern and patting the walls as if he was searching for something. Well, that was lovely, although I would have preferred to have him standing in front of me admitting such an apology himself. He could probably bluff his way out of whatever situation he found himself in anyways since he was the prince of darkness and all that, not the prince of the Unseelie court but his family must have truly gone dark, turned to the side of evil and all that. I wonder what kind of hierarchy was involved here. Was there an understanding of supremacy versus inferiority or was there a kind of mutual respect.  
Bigger issues right now and all that, I was relatively sure he would land on his feet again, he seemed to have the ability to do that after all. What I was less sure was if I would actually see him again and get the ability to rail at him and demand explanations. Right now though it looked as if we were in some kind of subterranean cavern. Again. I spent way too much time in underground caves it was a wonder I wasn't pale and practically glowing as well as having hair infested with bat guano. Though I hadn't actually seen any bats. Did Faerie have bats?  
"Ah ha, the " Kit cried from one of the corners he had been snooping around in.

"Did you find it?" Puck demanded from where he was leaning practically collapsed against the wall. He was our weak link right now, even more than me at least I was mobile and could move quickly if necessary. They all seemed to know what Kit had been looking for and I was left out of the loop once more. Where do they get this kind of information anyways? I might like the training and the power but I still was limited by my lack of practical knowledge. And I felt the lack deeply.

Kit pulled something on the cavern wall and as if he was sweeping back a curtain a reflective surface suddenly appeared. That was what Dylan must have meant when he talked about a transition point. He couldn't get us all the way home, that took a hell of a lot of power that he obviously didn't have. I probably did but it would have depleted my store to a dangerous low and without knowing exactly what I was doing was relatively useless, besides we already had one person who was too weak to be useful, why add to that?

"Let's move it" Kit grumbled grabbing Will's hand and dragging him towards the mirror. Whatever happened to lady's first. Not that I really believed such a misogynistic idea should be put into practice but I expected those two Renaissance men to be full believers of it. Now it was every man or woman for himself. Puck was pulling himself off from the wall brushing my hand aside. "We need to take refuge in the mortal realm" he stated. "There is not a safe passage between the light and the dark at leas going upland we have a slightly larger possibility of success.

"Glory" I muttered letting Puck push me forwards. "Back and forth and under and sideways we go."He smirked at me a slight pointy baring of his teeth and with one of those words that I still had yet to find out what language it was and what the fuck he was actually saying, and he jumped through the now glowing – because all magical things glow didn't you know – mirror pulling me through after him.

And with a thunk, we landed once more in the center of the Tower of London quad, though this time it was behind an opportune bush so as not to be seen by the off hand observer. What was so special about this place that we always seemed to land there? I wondered as I stared up from my prone position.  
The mold on the castle walls made interesting shapes if you squinted at them a bit. 

It all started when I drowned.  
We had come full circle.

It was like time had not even passed since I had been gone and I fully expected to see another me come trooping along with a group of forlorn students behind a loquacious intern who thought she knew far more than the world. The only sign that things were different was the season. The world had turned and no bright-eyed students were here. In fact, the gates were closed and the red guard's steps seemed slower and more drawn out.

I would be perfectly fine staying in this world. Going back to the normal and pretending nothing had changed. Waking up to my alarm clock at a time that seemed way too early and dragging myself to the coffee machine for much-needed caffeine before I even pretended to be lucid. Heck, I could even deal with my mother if it came to a choice between her and this frightfully dangerous world. Exciting was such an ideal that never really lived up to fantasies.

Dylan would go back to being my best friend who was wacky and had multiple personalities that he switched between like Oprah on a diet and who drove a cute little bug with loud Bowie music rather than the stand offish arrogant prince who, while much more fit than my Dylan, was still an ass. It didn't take any of Puck's magic liquid to make him so, it was just mind-bogglingly natural.

I felt eyes watching me from behind. It wasn't my three companions, they were sprawled out beside me surprisingly still for such active individuals and looking closer at their faces it was a forced petrification. I had not noticed before but it was eerily quiet and while the red guard appeared to be moving it was as if he was wading through mud behind a type of veil. Alternate dimension much. I shivered, great it had all gone pear shaped or something. There was a greenish cast to the glow, as if surrounded by a type of bubble alike to Puck's barrier from the last time I was here, but instead of keeping things out it was keeping us in. I could feel a kind of weight on my shoulders a dampening on my powers. Crap.

A sickly sweet voice started singing mockingly from behind me. "They stole little Bridget for seven years long and when she came up again her friends were all gone." I swiveled to look behind me – drastic whiplash there – and saw what appeared to be a tiny child version of myself except instead of red tomboy cut she had long blonde locks and blue eyes and she was dressed in the kind of old-fashioned white nightgown that I heartily disdained. She was perched atop a boulder and her bare feet clutched at the stone surface.

She jumped off the boulder lightly seeming to float down to the ground and marking her etherealness. Walking towards me she continued chanting, " They took her lightly back between the night and morrow. They thought she was fast asleep but she was dead." She ended without finishing and dissolved into a high giggle childish and girlish and oh so wrong.

I looked up at this evil child because she was evil you could tell by the glint in her eyes and the enjoyment therein when she mentioned death and loss. We had though we had a clean escape but we had been wrong if I was correct this thing that looked so much like an innocent child like me even was perhaps the most dangerous thing we had confronted yet. And why did it look so much like me?

"Who the fuck are you?" I demanded of it. It wasn't really a child and so I could swear bloody murder if I wanted. And I wanted since this was definitely a moment that merited it. My backup was somehow contained and totally useless, there was a damper on my powers and this creature had popped up like some bat out of hell to serve justice on our sinning forms. To use a vernacular expression that was the stereotypical British phrase, it had all gone pear-shaped.  
She smiled in one of those brilliant blue-eyed and innocent smiles that only a blonde could actually pull off emphasized by the white dress and the fact that she appeared to be about five. It should have been a sweet as honey expression, but the wide-eyed vacancy to her eyes and the way her hands twitched with weird sigils only made her look completely deranged. I expected her head to start spinning at any moment. Okay now was the moment where I would totally appreciate whatever personality Dylan was supposed to be sporting to come sweeping in on any version of his white horse that he fancied. But no such luck.

"I am Bridgit" she answered in a kind of weird echo of my existence and what the hell just how many Bridgits were there that were going to pop up in the middle of nowhere and go all voodoo on me.

She giggled with a childish laughter that seemed completely out of place with the present situation. "They have kept her ever since deep within the lake on a bed of flag leaves watching till she wake" she sang softly swaying from side to side to her own music. As if in answer to my question. "I woke up yesterday and the lady needs me now. I'm gonna go home and get to see mama and my sisters again. Only she needs you to replace me. You who hold my name and my promise of power. You shall take the place on the altar that I have ever held. That I have died on for eternity. Too long we slumbered trapped beneath the thorn trees on the eldest sight of our kidnapping of old. Too long but now some idiot male has dug them up." She laughed now but it was a grown woman's laugh and her form shifted into transparency back and forth between child and grown woman and then a stooped hag. Seriously lady rest in peace and all that.

She reached out a fingertip towards my forehead maiden mother and crone all in one body. "There have always been Bridgits each year a new one is born just waiting for the lady to be able to snatch her. I am the oldest, the first born. But you, you shall be the one chosen and the dark lady will take the chance to seize the throne for her own."

What was with villain characters and monologuing didn't telling the erstwhile hero, in this case me the heroine – and wasn't that a laugh in itself – all about their evil schemes and how they planned on conquering the world in a night – didn't it just lean towards their plots being overthrown or having said victim rescued by some happy accident? Shouldn't all the villains united – if there was such a coalition cause there should be – have learned I mean there was a guide book I heard about it or read about it somewhere.

"But enough of that to business" she made an odd clapping noise with her hands more like a flapping or something of the like and looked expectantly at me. I of course despite being dampened with whatever weird magic thing she had cast on my power had retained a small kernel outside of her shields and was hoarding it into my own barriers that is why whatever she had expected to happen didn't work since she must have used a physical attack first and my barriers worked best against physical, but of course it would be a one hit wonder since her second attack would inevitably be stronger and enact a kind of overkill.

She looked irked her brow furrowing and her eyes getting all deep and woozy as if I had put a crunch in her plans that she had not expected and actually limited her somehow. Funny I could tell she was a pretty powerful enemy so I really shouldn't have been able to do that much it was as if she was on some kind of time limit maybe a moon cycle or other zodiac time scheme that she had to follow this was of course if she was the type from various fantasy novels in which there is a trope of a certain limitation on the major villains that ultimately would save the damsel in distress or fair youth.

She smiled cruelly guess not ‘cause I would be so lucky to have something actually go in my favor that drastically. She jerked her hands more emphatically and power bubbled up from below to twine around my ankles and started tugging. Her power must have become too focused cause I saw Puck begin to stir from the corner of my eyes at the same time that the time-space continuum barrier that she had going for her between us and the rest of the mortal world shimmered as if it was thinning.

I was just about to hope maybe I could distract her enough for Puck to rouse fully and do serious fey damage or mayhaps call for help – where were Sarah and Jareth anyways? Didn't they have full control in the light and were aware of happenings in the mortal realm considering it was the queen's birth place. I got that they were busy elsewhere, but considering this seemed to be the center of the major action what else could possibly be going on in the seelie court to draw their attention away. Anyways Puck was distracted since it seemed the iron world was getting to him once more and he had just started healing from being so weak it must have been something to do with protections and barriers since it seemed his energy was too weak to put up the kind of shield necessary to subsist in our world of so much steel and iron even the modern skyscrapers now had iron cores built into them. Notice how faerie had yet to go corporate on us.

He collapsed back to the ground from where he had been twitching and seemed not to even have been aware of the whole situation which I now saw that fake Bridgit had totally known he was awakening by the way her eyes slid from my form to his and then back again knowingly with a cruel smile she jerked her hand once more and pushed his body towards an old dusty fountain whose metal statue was made of you guessed it, iron.

She put more force on whatever weird magic she had done to me and I could feel the drain as my stores of power were emptying fast and there was not enough, even if there had been room to do it without damaging my comrades to pull off a dramatic fireball and somehow I did not think it would actually cause any harm to this child demon. Finally, my shields dropped and I felt the vine like things pull me down and freakily through the ground straight down and down. Earthquake paranoia much?

When I finally dropped down fully I found myself in the room underground that I had first been brought to you know the one with the freaky altar? Which post-drowning is something you didn't really want to deal with and the same thing with being pulled through several layers of sediment which should have killed you twice over both from asphyxiation or being crushed by the pressure of rock and dirt? I hate magic. It makes almost death experiences so anti-climatic and so freaking random and often. That was the part I liked least about how I almost died – or died without realizing it – so many times this past week – still confused with the whole passage of time thing here.

Craptastic especially the fact that we had left my three supposed guard dogs behind and my only hope seemed to lay in either myself or the dead weight next to me which – of course – turned out to be male and my erstwhile knight in shining armor, Prince Jerkface or Dylan, depending on his mood. A sword or perhaps some uber powerful magical item that had yet to discover its true magical content would have been more helpful.

Yeah and he looked like he was completely out of it despite or perhaps because of the bruises that covered his face and the split lip. Yeah, helpful.

And besides him lay the form of the troll-like being I had met at the beginning of what was seeming more and more like an epic quest of mine a Mr. T esquire better known as Hoggle I believe but he was looking even more out of it than Dylan might be due to the fact that while Dylan was bruised and scratched Hoggle was missing an arm which was still gushing blood and filling the pool beneath him at a steady flow.

Nice and these were my resources for I don't know escape, defense, what you will?  
But the Bridgit figure was messing around with the altar area singing softly to herself as she lit candles and pulled various paraphernalia out form jars and I don't even want to know what. She was singing softly to herself and laughing at odd moments in no particular order. She seemed to completely ignore our presence so I scooted closer to Dylan. I was not bound by anything that I could see but I also did not really want to draw her attention away from her own insane hallucination.

I nudged him with my foot. "Hsst Dylan or Diron or whatever the hell you are called nowadays" I whispered at him. Hoping that he was still lucid enough to be able to respond to stimulus. He didn't move, maybe he was actually out of it. Maybe he was dead. Or more likely he was playing possum to wait for the opportune moment.


	22. Chapter 22

I moved to nudge him again but the hand on the opposite side away from the swaying and humming false Bridgit reached out and grabbed me. One eye peeked open and glared up at me making an odd sideways glance with his pupil that I took to mean I should get in between him and said blonde child's vision. I was still struck on the blonde part – since when had any version of me been blonde anyways?

"What?" I whispered at Dylan crouching down and pretending to feel his pulse.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded glaring up at me. It should have been angrier after the words made it seem like he was furious with me and never wanted to see me again the epitome of Prince Jerkface who had gone to all the trouble of getting me out of the dungeons only to have me reappear soon after in the very cauldron pot. Ever heard of out of the frying pan into the fire? Yeah, that. But no it was partly anger true but it was more of an anger at the situation and more of a fear which was weird since with this new Dylan I was not used to fear appearing anywhere near him. I laugh in the face of danger muahahaha! Fear, what did he have to be scared about at least for him besides the whole beaten up and laying on the floor of a room that was obviously meant for sacrifice next to an individual who had yet to stop bleeding yeah life was not looking so good for him me however well I was already screwed and that had been obvious from the beginning. So what the hell.

Just then the false blonde child, FBC for short because I just love acronyms, had finally finished whatever she had been working on and I felt a flare of power. It had the same greasy dark feeling that I had felt before but the one difference, this time, was that it was calling something. Gwendolyn entered the chambers suddenly through a portal that had been covered by one of those heavy velvet dark red curtains that one always finds in villains lairs. But I could tell that she was not whatever was meant to be summoned. SO not looking forward to whatever it was. Didn't I already have enough to deal with what with two uber evils a body that was looking more and more like it was dead or soon to be and then there was Dylan.

One must not forget about the Dylan apparent son of some important royal figure – and just what was the story behind Jareth's half-brother after all?

Dylan was still looking at me in that weird way but I was focused on the approaching doom and gloom feeling to be too worried about it, unfortunately, Gwendolyn must have entered from a vantage point from which she was able to see him and she totally noticed the fact that he was awake.

"What is wrong brave night? Oh, what can ail thee knight at arms? She cooed. "So haggard and so woebegone." Urgh poetry.

"La belle sans merci hath me in her thrall" he spoke seriously in a tone far steadier than mine would have been in such a situation and really it should have been an insult to the lady that she was a banshee figure but he was not looking at her he was looking at me. Oh. Fuck.

No this could not be happening Dylan my bipolar leaning towards crazy Dylan Why me? Why would he fall for me? There was very little to fall for and I was sure that I wanted nothing to do with males and having them in thrall to me sure I demanded adoration and respect based on intellect and personality but to me thralldom and desire always had more to do with appearance and the physical representation rather than anything to do with a brain and for that matter what was up with the choice between say Jenna and me, Jenna was obviously much more attractive and I had thought that she and Dylan were like friendly exes with benefits or some such understanding. I guess not.

"You understand now" he was looking at me completely ignoring the dark evil lady standing just a few feet away in the manner of those sappy romance novels that were oh so mock-worthy.

"No" I denied whether or not it was a no I don't understand or a no this can't possibly be happening I still was not sure.  
He leaned up to clasp my hands in the traditional declaration of love pose and I got the feeling he was either stalling or mocking me or maybe drugged by some happy go lucky spell that had   
the same effects as drink and marijuana, not that I had ever touched those substances and I was relatively sure he hadn't either.

He was not looking glassy-eyed and dreaming. "You were so against the idea so determined that our friendship would never go any further than platonic best buddies with your overly gay friend" he sounded disgusted by the idea. "You had a preconception that I had no desire to mess with at the time."

"And now?" I demanded, well if he was going to be serious. It's not like I had wanted him to be so openly against a relationship with me that he went all gay. I had had my crush on him since he was good looking even with the stick thin and fashionless glamour he had put on which really did not manage to hide how wonderful his personality was. And that was what really mattered to me after all. But I had crappy luck with guys so it was just safer to assume that he was not interested in my gender at all.

"Isn't that sweet" Gwendolyn interrupted our moment with just the faintest tinge of bitterness – and wasn't it weird me having moments for which one could be jealous of. Twilight zone much?  
We both continued to ignore her monologue too wrapped up in a kind of pseudo Hollywood understanding of a romance story.

"Now I -"

"Oh shut up please" the Gwendolyn lady pleaded as she paced around making some kinds of markings on the ground with a stencil I could tell it was a pentagram. "Why should you get the perfect love story the grand finale when I didn't why should you get it all when I lost so much?" she was muttering to herself. "Cause it is not like the whole story of your life hasn't worked out perfectly" – just where had she been if my life had been perfect I wouldn't have had braces I wouldn't be just about to be sacrificed in some version of the dark human sacrifice to a deity ritual.

I pushed myself and once standing pulled Dylan up to stand next to me he was looking pale and shaky but still stood tall then I turned to confront my villain.  
"Perfect? Just what lifeline were you born in?" I demanded of her completely ignoring the look and prodding motions of my erstwhile best friend or was it prospective boyfriend prince I wasn't sure what his role in my life would be now or if he would have any role at all, considering he was a prince of faerie which wasn't distracting at all.

Finally, I turned to him when his prodding got too persistent as if he was desperate to tell me something important "What!" I demanded, sure he had practically declared himself but I was having my confrontation moment here and he was distracting me in one of those toddler pulling on the mother's shirt whispering mommy I have to go to the loo in the middle of a business meeting moments. So seriously what?

He leaned towards me with a hand on my shoulder in the familiar pose for when he used to whisper gossip to me in the back of the lecture hall "You know she was once a Bridgit don't you?" Oh, that explained so much about the whole identity complex.

"I can hear thou" she called out continuing her markings but finally straightening and placing her hands on her hips in a frankly modern pose. "Though I have watched the world pass by I was too early snatched from its bosom and sworn to live within the depths forevermore." Ok yes snatched according to the poem and living in Faerie for seven score to a hundred years yes that I got but if that had turned her evil who had done the original snatching, who had snatched said first Bridgit who was still standing around the circle giggling silently and who I had almost forgotten?

"I was drawn in seduced tricked into staying here by your kin" she pointed at Dylan.

"Mine fair lady?" he queried carefully as if talking to an insane person.  
"Yes, yours" she spat "your uncle drew me down fascinated for some god known reason I was interesting to him and I lost my place in the seventeenth century right around the same time your Shake-spear came down to rest eternal. He was old and oh so willing to rest amongst the fairies to return to his lost love but I? I was but twenty-five and still waiting for the prime of my life just about to be married to my own love and spend the rest of my days in marital bliss when your Jareth decided that I would be a princely plaything." I could see that she would have been pretty much except for now her face was lined from too much scowling and clenching of her teeth and her hair was so much greasier and there were white lines from crouching over potions full of acidic chemicals, knotted from holding names in bondage. The white, in some, would have been dignified in her it just made her look unclean and old. Which was in stark contrast to the rest of her which retained the body of a twenty-five-year-old.

"He grew tired of me and cast me off to return or wander as I will. None of the other lords wanted the prince’s second-hand goods and I returned above hoping against hope that my love was still waiting for his bride, unlikely in that day and age but I was still something of an innocent." She snarled. "My love was some twenty years dead from the plague the city had burned and been rebuilt and all of my friends dead and gone so I begged the dark fey to take me back I could not bear to be in the court of the light and I knew your Morgon was holding court with ties to the dark. Morgon at least had been kind to me in my loneliness he had still paid respect to me once all my standing had been gone. That and only that is why I will not kill his son no matter how estranged the two might be. You'll make a pretty toy in my court." She leered down at a Dylan who had suddenly gone much paler. Now would be the moment for maybe Jareth or Sarah to come bursting in with a flash of white light to save the day? But no such luck.

Gwendolyn cackled madly to the chorus of Bridgit one's childish giggles.  
"I accepted and the raised me up for a power I did not know I had come into, and quickly allied the nobles beneath me those who would not allow subjection were eliminated." Here she stroked one of her knotted braids darkly in memory. "And I set myself up in power eternally yearning for the end of Jareth and when he should beg at my feet. Then Sarah came" she snarled at this green jealousy flashing in her eyes. "I thought she would be like me another willing plaything for a little while only to be cast off. But she refused him at first creating a kind of chase in which kept the prince now king interested through the whole hard to get ideology of Queen Anne. But the time chasing her allowed him to get to know her better and finally to fall in love, not the fleeting interest of a play thing but true love unlike any felt before for a mortal. And I almost hate her more than Jareth. Almost since she only caught him where I failed but he was the ultimate cause of my loss."

"Haven't you ever heard the proverb revenge does not turn back time and it won't actually do anything for your fate except turn the rest of Faerie against you?" I demanded thrusting a still shivering Dylan behind me who was now clutching his stomach as the tension from his fear was emphasizing one of his bruises.

"No" she stated calmly.

 

"No but now is not the time for such theoretical arguments now is the time for action" she menaced with the knife and before either I or Dylan could react she was at my side pulling me away from Dylan with the knife to my neck.  
"Now where were we my dear sacrifice? Oh yes here. Now watch carefully young darkling as my tool you will probably have to do something very similar to this once you've become a tad bit more brain washed to the life now, however, you are a weakling in the power of the dark." as she was speaking she was gradually increasing the pressure on my neck until a small trickle of blood appeared which made the wards of the pentagon glow deeply. Blood wards were a menace from the human world not that this made them any better in my eyes.

"Don't" Dylan reached towards me almost pleading "Don't do this lady I will -"

"Shut up Dylan" I hissed he was about to do something stupid.

"Silence love"Gwendolyn sushed at me, "I want to hear what our princeling will say.

"Take me instead" I knew it he was going to do something stupid.

"Send her back to the light realm" he continued.

"And just why would I do such a drastic thing so contrary to my plans?" Gwendolyn seemed genuinely curious.

"With me you would have a prince of the blood willingly given" he was so quoting Pirates of the Caribbean now and it was so not the moment for it. "Which you could use in a different curse on the family, a curse which would effect the new prince begat by your enemy on the Lady Sarah" he continued.

Damnit Dylan, she really did not need that information. It was a betrayal of trust my trust if not his in whatever agreement he had worked out with the light fey.

"Such an interesting proposal and all for true love and that rot but it seems your girlfriend does not approve of the idea" she murmured.

"Bridgit let it go" he pleaded with me "you can go free and while not back to your life above at least you will be alive."

"What kind of person do you take me for?" I demanded angrily, "Do you really think I would like an option that while it doesn't have the same kind of consequences as my sacrifice it would ultimately cause the death of a whole family and a baby just so I could live!" Ok now I was pissed.

"I thought -" he started.

"Well, you thought wrong" I hissed.

"Children, it is not really up to you who I kill" only I heard the first whispered after that statement but before I could yell further at Dylan she was at his back and thrusting a knife through his shoulder, "but small contingencies need to be made as I do not think thou really means it do you my dear?'  
Dylan only answered with a grunt as he fell to the floor. While not mortal the wound such as that would hurt like hell not only from the whole pointy object going through shoulder and major blood loss but because it crept in underneath his shields so that it was direct iron against him. It was actually quite amazing that the poisoning didn't finish him immediately.

That was it I had had enough with her and her bleeding knife and I really wasn't happy with the whole well who is going to die next thing, NO one was going to die if I had anything to say about it and it was high time I said something. I was not a defenseless mortal any longer and while still not trained to the extent of a fey warrior mage I was not some lily flower waiting to be saved by my knight in shining armor on some fucking unicorn. Dude those don't even exist anymore too limited amounts of male virgins and it was so anticlimactic to have a female virgin knight save you especially since there were also limited amounts of female virgins.

It was time to call the big boys and while she was distracted cooing over Dylan's body brushing his hair back in a completely disturbing and somewhat perverted manner while making sigils in the air, I started gathering power to my core which she really should have noticed what with her being a practitioner of magic but I guess she was one of those people who could not multi-task and had to focus on one thing at a time. Fortunate for me that while she was casting it was necessary for her barriers to be completely down so as to allow the magic to flow in and open herself up to the calling of whatever god she was naming Lucifer perhaps whereas I was calling Michael. Mine was quicker on the draw since you know warrior angel is perhaps better at that kind of stuff than evil overlords of Hell, theoretically. Just saying. Even if it wasn't Lucifer whatever false demon god was still a lazy ass. Seriously.

"You rang?" And it was a girl? "I resent that I am not an it I am an angel of the lord and I am very busy at the moment what with answering all the prayers and searching for the Father so if you don't mind?" And it appears that the angels of the lord could read minds. Ho-okay.  
I merely pointed and Michael nodded shortly it was all business. Apparently time had stopped somehow as she failed to notice the bright shining thing or maybe it was because her vision was too clouded by hate and darkness since Dylan looked like he could see the angel or at least the angels form which was a statuesque red haired woman in a business suit with an out of place sword strapped to her hip and a chic sporty cut to her hair with pale grey eyes hidden behind silver rimmed glasses. Dylan’s eyes widened and seemed to glaze over. So evil blindness it was. Michael drew her sword, and from her back the shadow of brilliantly white wings stretched out and filled the room with brilliance. Gwendolyn had continued chanting and calling her demons during Michael’s grand entrance but finally and a bit too late she noticed the angels presence the flash of light and flare of power was kind of hard to miss after all. Michael had reversed her sword and seemed to grow in height until she towered over the once Bridgit. The bottom really the pointy end of the makeshift crucifix plunged through the heart of the now crouching unseelie queen. "Thou hast sinned and must therefore be punished by the hand of the lord" she murmured making the sign of the cross with her finger.


	23. Chapter 23

Bridgit still seemed to hold a last breath in her but instead of cursing, she confessed. A strange contradiction to her actions that only showed a kind of madness had descended on her after her loss. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned" she whispered. Must have been a minority Catholic in her past life.

"Be at peace daughter for the lord forgives all who sin and repent." With those final words, Gwendolyn's eyes finally closed and with a smile on her face she died as if she had finally found the respite that she had so long looked for and met up with her long lost love once more. It was somewhat anticlimactic that such a feared woman died so easily and while I was not a fanatical Christian it made sense to me that fey power was too different from Christian spirituality and faith especially in one who subconsciously believed would hold up against. Either that or her shields were down and her monster had yet to come.

Michael turned back to me and inclined her head, with two slim fingers she extended a business card of all things to me and with a crisp turn of her heel she disappeared without the whole triumphant music of angelic horns of flash just a blink and she was gone. Only a voice remained to murmur in my ear. "A glimmer of good in a bad woman's heart after all." Which would have been lovely and everything except Dylan was dying and we had no way of getting him help. I definitely did not want to be wandering around the Unseelie court what with all of the dark nobles recently freed and most scheming to take up Gwendolyn's throne or on a power rampage high on liberty once more since I knew with her death that all the names knotted in her hair would go back to their original owners with a snap unless she designated an heir for them. So power hungry nobles versus one mortal with limited amounts of magic and I had used up my calls to divinity for a while actually I shouldn't even have been able to do it except Michael was somewhat ambiguous in his – now it was embodied in her I guess – warrior status as a challenger to all that was evil I wouldn't have been able to call, say Gabriel an angel with looser morals or principles however.

But I regress escaping yeah. I was at Dylan's side trying to staunch the wound with a strip from my shirt I was definitely burning this shirt afterward so much blood and dirt and sweat even a dry cleaner wouldn't have saved it. I knew the blood wasn't the main problem but rather it was the poison inside of him it seemed as if a shard had buried inside of him and I totally didn't have the medical expertise to go in and dig it out with my hands not to mention the wound itself was not big enough to do that it had been a slim blade and I really really did not want to widen it. He needed healers desperately since I didn't think a mortal doctor would help what with the iron involved in so much much of modern medicine. Which made me wonder what had he been doing for his physicals up above especially with the vaccination requirements for our school and also what the hell was in his blood if not iron at least I thought I knew that much about physiology.

While I was having this small mental breakdown I felt a presence come up behind me. I had forgotten about the original Bridgit and I tensed waiting for her to do something even though there was very little I could do against her. She was powerful and I was pretty much burnt out of major magical energy sure I could call fireballs since those were actually pretty minor but I highly doubted that they would do much damage.

She made a sushing motion with her finger and padded forwards softly. Her eyes were still completely crazed and loopy but they held less of the evil taint from before.

"You now embody me" she spoke quietly, "while Gwendolyn reigned she was the most powerful aspect of me and held my intent fast within her I could do nothing as I was an aspect of herself as she was to me. Now it is you." Her body was fading in and out still a child in appearance her hair was beginning to turn a familiar orange, not as bright as mine but still recognizable. Gwendolyn must have done a dye job or something.

Yes that was great the original was having a morality crisis wonderful but just why was she telling me this.

Then Bridgit one glowed and placing her hand over mine she pushed energy into Dylan I was just about to lash out at her but I felt the knitting healing power sinews repairing and a rush through his body of cleansing then with a sigh he relaxed as the poison in his body was suddenly not there. Oh, that.

She looked down at me since she was standing her edges were even dimmer and the lines outlining her body were not really there anymore everything was as if through some kind of veil all except for her deep blue eyes which were staring into mine with such calm serenity and peace she had seen the light and all that.

"Last goodbyes" she whispered barely more than a sigh and pointed a familiar mirror appeared on the wall the same one Hoggle had shown us before it must be one of those transient ones that moved around in this world or was moved like the omniscient pig who knew the meaning of life but would not tell unless surprised into it.

I looked back at where she had been but she was completely gone now no trace of her remained from which to demand explanations. Dylan was sleeping now the sleep or rest of the newly healed and exhausted from the effort. So I hauled his body over to where the mirror was looking back to where Hoggle's body was still bleeding I felt guilty could I really just leave him behind even if he was dead then again there was that maxim about if one is bleeding one is not truly dead but I didn't really trust that since I felt that if there is a hole in something whether or not is dead the liquid inside will ultimately drain out. But still I did not know what kind of burial rituals were involved for the fey but I had two live bodies that I was prepared to be more worried about.

He groaned and that shook me ok still alive so I cautiously made my way over towards him. Kneeling down – well my outfit was already shot so what the hell.

"Hoggle" I muttered and his eyes flickered open to half mast. Even if he was alive now he wasn't going to be for long. "You're free," I told him.

He gave a soft sigh.  
"Good" he murmured so softly that I could barely hear the words "but what are you still doing here lassie? I thought I got you out of here already? Must have ... for Sarah" It was the most he had said in a while and it came out in a breath that seemed to take the last of his strength as he lay gasping and his heart was pounding faster than was normal for so small of a body. "Got to go" he was looking directly at me it wasn't him that was going it was a demand. "Go" he sighed and finally he sighed and his hand relaxed, eyes glazing over. Dead definitely dead and the mirror was calling I couldn't stay. So I left him what more could I have done? I stepped up to the mirror and at its glow I stepped through supporting Dylan's weight with my shoulder and leaning somewhat.  
We landed almost instantly on a cold stone but familiar floor. It was the good kind of familiar this time rather than the bad as we had returned to my chambers cleaned and repaired now once more with a fresh bed just calling to me. So I hoisted Dylan up onto pulling his legs up onto the bed next and slipped off his knee length boots – which were completely ridiculous-and with nary a care for the blood stains which were for the most part dry by now I curled up next to him throwing the light coverlet over us both. So tired and it was nice to have this kind of nostalgia as Diron or old Dylan had done this many times before when we pulled all-night study sessions or theoretically all night and theoretically study sessions before when we were just two college kids trying to get by on limited sums and too much homework.

Sleep soft tired dreams with a warm body next to me and arms around my waist. I fell deep my body and my mind were more tired than I first thought and I didn't really want to deal with the repercussions since I knew there would be many not for offing the dark lady that was almost expected but for the male lying next to me who although he must have had some agreement with the light fey, he most likely was not completely welcome right in the middle of the fey court only a couple doors down from the expecting queen and the basis of their power.

Alas, it was not to last long as I felt a stirring in the air currents of the room that rubbed against my ripped shirt so that a drafted caused shivers along my back where Dylan's arm was not covering. If anyone had knocked which would have been the polite thing to do people I had not heard and I had not been allowed the opportunity to completely ignore it and then they would have been somewhat justified in their rudeness.

"As you can see majesties your lost Bridgit is perfectly fine almost to the level of indecent and there was absolutely nothing to worry about" it was the snooty tones of Sir Chaucer again blast it all that guy was annoying as hell even without the exasperating syntax of his. I popped my head up just enough to snarl at him there was not enough caffeine here to deal with him and I definitely needed more sleep.

Dylan moved his hand down my back in a calming stroke he was obviously not awake yet but he had always been able to sense my moods even when not fully lucid and especially when I was tense and or angry. Not that his familiarity helped at all as I heard gasps as his small shift pushed his face into view.

"It seems my family has, how shall I call it, the magic touch?" I could practically hear the smirk in Jareth's tone but I was somewhat gratified in hearing a resounding smack that must have come from a temperamental pregnant Sarah.

"Oh, I wouldn't call it that," she said all too sweetly. Stupid Jareth didn't recognize the warning tone.

"What would you call it then dear heart?" he was leering as he cradled his stinging cheek not that a mere slap could hurt him no really he was just humoring her obviously.

"Well, sweetheart" the sweet tone warning bells should have been ringing in this universal signal of female ire, "It's just that you can't do much on your own without our brains and we're inclined to humor you." The court must have been used to this by now as there were no swords drawn at such an insult to the king either that or Sarah had a greater support base than I thought. And it happened I agreed with her.

Jareth backed down quickly seeming to shrink into himself at her overly sweet evil glare cause yes us women could do that. By this time, I had roused myself to sit up. I was not in the best of moods so forgive me if I was in something of a worse state regarding my etiquette.

"And what can I do with you fine people" forgive the sarcasm.

Sarah smiled at this, obviously, she could relate. "Oh nothing we were just wondering where you happened to trip off to and how you managed to get out of the rabbit hole per se?" she played nonchalant well I'll give her.

“ Dylan came to save the day. Badly." With this I gestured behind me at a now relatively awake and sitting up Dylan. Talk about walk of shame without him even having done anything.  
"Anyways I defeated her so she's dead isn't that enough?" I pleaded. Apparently not as they were still looking at me expectantly. Fine.

"Bridgit one opened your magical mirror and got us back through so must I recap each event moment by moment?"

Sarah came over and patted my shoulder. "No that's enough information" she turned to glare at Chaucer who I could tell was about to negate that statement. "But perhaps you want food and clothing?" she asked. Oh yeah I did. Sarah must have seen that in my face since apparently I was as easy to read as a book and she shooed her male followers out with her. Then instead of procuring food on the spot – she must have sent her husband off to do that since when you're pregnant you can order around the high king of the fey whether he wills it or not – she put her hands on her hips. "Now young man" she was talking to Dylan since I seemed to be forgotten. "What are your intentions towards Bridgit?" Oh lord kill me now.

He looked at me rather than her. "Whatever she wants." Well didn't that put the ball firmly in my court?

"Whatever I want?" I ask quietly no longer sure what exactly what it was I wanted. I knew I couldn't return above time had probably shifted to a hundred or more years in the future anyways and I wasn't even sure that if I could have returned I would have even wanted to. I didn't know what I wanted to do I was so adrift and it felt like the floor was shifting underneath me. But I felt a kind of solidity in his eyes as if he would hold me steady despite the changing ground. "I think I want my friend back and maybe later after I get to know this you... maybe" I couldn't finish but it seemed that was all he was waiting for. Sarah had slipped out of the room by now to give us our moment. Very discreet that one.

So the world continued and life went on Dylan and I reaffirmed our friendship and soon became lovers because obviously that was the next step in our relationship didn't you know friends with benefits is a lot like lovers. A decade passed with very little change oh except for Sarah giving birth to a little tyrant and if anything Jareth became worse. Now a days there are tykes running around everywhere and no I cannot believe I used such an obsolete and archaic term. Le sigh. I must be getting on in years. Well kids running around since the nobility decided that now it was in to have their kids at court. Will and Kit were all right since I completely forgot to mention them. It turns out that as soon as us two Bridigits left the stasis spell dropped and they were arrested by the pig. Which you wouldn't think would be a good thing except the police man turned out to be something of a drunkard so when Will pulled the I am William Shakespeare and thinkest thou vile minion that arresting the likes of me would pleaseth the majesty the queen? The guy actually bought it as some kind of visitation of the ghost of Shakespeare with some random man at arms who obviously knew how to wield the pointy object that was poking him in the over large stomach and he swore off drinking forever well at least until next Tuesday. They were able to return to fey court and get Kit a healer but were unable to do us any good beyond that because both of them were weakened and they had no idea where I had been taken so they prepared for the worst. Puck on the other hand had abandoned them at the sight of the large police man to flee back home and was now suffering the ribaldry of the other two for his cowardice no matter how much it had been expected. Puck was a lover and a magic user obviously not a fighter.

In the end everything worked out and I was happily experiencing my first century below ground eagerly awaiting my next reincarnation and my ability to wonder just where the heck that had spun off of. But now dyland is hovering over my head as I write out my life story without his cynical comments yes without because I have my own way of saying things and it is not necessary --

Dear heart I interrupt your rant at my constructive and beneficial criticism to tell you that dinner is being served and that it is high time you left off your pen scratchings – yes I bewail the absence of computers just as much as you – and leave your desk and cramped position for some much needed sustenance especially since I have convinced the chefs that coffee is not a type of poison and that they will not be executed for serving it. These were obviously some of the escapees from Gwendolyn's courts who had yet to fully adjust to my uncle's way of ruling.  
With much love and adoration,  
Dylan ap Morgan, High Prince of the Seelie and Unseelie Court and Paramour to the Twenty Third Bridgit.


End file.
